Timing is Everything
by Morning Lilies
Summary: The first time it was easy. Everything went just as expected, according to schedule. But the second time was nothing like the first time. Harry never expected the rollercoaster ride it would be to bring Albus Severus Potter into the world.
1. Timing

**A/N: This is the first chapter for Eirinn Croi's Pondering Parenthood competition. I've got Harry and Al and there should be nine more chapters to come (hopefully I'll get them all done on time), though the lengths will probably very. I'm thinking this one might be on the longer side, even though it is a bit short. But I've always wanted to write something like this for Al, so I'm excited to get started! Hope you like it! **

A peacefulness hung over the house. Dawn was just creeping over the horizon, dusky purple and velvet-soft as it always comes in mid-winter. Snowflakes drifted gently down, settling light and silent as feathers on the rooftops and windowsills. A few morning stars glimmered and winked like distant jewels in the lightening sky.

Harry watched the transformation with a dazed wonder through the gap in the curtains, still half-asleep and not entirely sure if he was dreaming or not. What he was more acutely aware of was Ginny's warm presence beside him, her slow, even breathing, and James's coos and sighs coming through the little glass cone charmed to bring them every noise in their son's bedroom in lieu of a baby monitor.

Moments like this, that seemed to hang as though made of nothing but light and paint, they were the ones that made him wonder how this could really be his life, or if there had been some sort of mix-up during the night. How on earth did the boy who lived under the stairs end up here?

But those moments of bliss were, as could only be expected, fleeting. The steady breathing coming from James's room was interrupted by a hiccough and then a cough and then James was wailing at the top of his lungs.

Ginny groaned and pulled the pillow over her head.

"Don't worry, I've got him," Harry mumbled, already sliding out of bed. Ginny hadn't been feeling well the last few days, and she was the one who took care of James all day. It was a sort of unspoken agreement that Harry take the graveyard shift now that James was drinking out of a bottle finally.

Harry grabbed his dressing gown off the back of the door and shuffled across the hall to the nursery. James, in typical James fashion, was screaming as loudly as he could, his little fists waving and his face screwed up as if that hiccough had been the worst thing in the world. At ten months old, James was already proving to be dramatic.

Harry rested an arm on the bar of the crib and reached down to catch one of his son's little hands with his thumb and forefinger. "Easy, mate. What's the trouble?" he asked the baby, smiling when James's cries wavered for a moment and his eyes popped open to find his father's face. A moment later, though, they redoubled in volume as he waved his arms frantically, wordlessly pleading to be picked up.

Harry complied at once, scooping James out of his cot, shsh-ing and rocking him gently as he made his way over to the changing table below the window. He went through the motions of calming James down and cleaning him up without even needing to think about it, lost in the tiny, early-morning world of his son's face, every move and sound he made.

It was things like this that caught him off guard, made him wonder if he weren't in fact in some prolonged dream and would wake up to find himself back in the middle of a war. He had gone so long believing that he would never make it past eighteen, that this life was an impossibility to him. It was surreal to be looking down at his own child, in one tiny body the most extraordinary person he had ever met, and one who held a power over him he had not been able to fully understand until little fingers had clamped around his pinky as if determined to never let go.

And Harry doubted James would ever loosen that grip he had on him.

XxX

"Ginny, I can take off. Honestly, it's no big deal. We'll probably be doing paperwork anyway."

"No – really – I'm fine –"

Harry sighed as his wife's assurances were cut off by retching sounds and pulled the bathroom door farther closed.

"What are we going to do with her, huh Jamie?" he asked the ten-month-old baby in his arms. His son squealed and stuck his fingers in his mouth for answer. "Wise words, my friend," Harry said solemnly. "Come on, let's leave her be."

He hoisted James higher in his arms and started down the stairs toward the kitchen.

"What d'you think, mate?" Harry asked as he settled James into his highchair. "Banana or cereal?"

James banged his palms on the tray and blew a raspberry.

"That's what I thought," Harry nodded, turning to the cupboard. "Better go with both. We'll split it."

By the time Ginny staggered downstairs, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking distinctly haggard, James was busily smearing banana slices around his tray and Harry was slurping down the last of his cereal.

"Feeling better, love?" he asked, brushing a kiss on her forehead as he slid past to put his bowl in the sink.

"No, but I will be," Ginny mumbled, shuffling over to the coffee pot and pouring herself a steaming mug.

"Ginny, I can take one day off so you can actually get some rest," Harry tried again, leaning against the counter and scrutinizing her. "You can't really be up for watching the little monster all day like this."

"And what happens when _you _catch this?" Ginny shot at him, raising the cup to her lips. She grimaced at the smell, turning slightly green, and set it back down on the counter. "Or how about when James has it? You can't ditch work for an entire week, especially not with Hermione ready to have the baby any day."

Harry had to concede the truth of this statement. Ron was already frantic enough with Hermione's due date passed up by two days.

"Besides," Ginny went on, sinking down into a chair and grabbing a napkin to wipe James's sticky fingers. "I've been able to shake it off by noon, once I'm up and moving. It's just the mornings that are rough."

Harry cut her a sideways look, raising an eyebrow. "So… you're telling me you have morning sickness?" he asked slowly.

"What?" Ginny spluttered, the napkin slipping between her fingers and fluttering to the tiled floor. "No. No, no no. I'm absolutely _not _having morning sickness. There's no way I'm pregnant."

"Okay, okay," Harry agreed, holding up his hands in surrender. "Just because you're only ill in the morning doesn't mean you're having morning sickness."

Ginny relaxed back in her chair, laughing weakly and shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go on the offensive. But I'm just _not _pregnant."

"I believe you," Harry assured her, his lips twitching at her laughter.

James, not to be left out, squealed and slapped his sticky hands together. Ginny smiled and leaned down to rub her nose against his. Harry turned to the sink and began running water for the dishes. It was a few minutes before he spoke again.

"But, if you were – pregnant I mean – it wouldn't be the end of the world like that, would it?" he asked over the clank of plates washing themselves.

Ginny set down the spoon she had retrieved to feed James the rest of his banana. He wasn't very interested in eating the fruit, anyway, it seemed. James seemed to prefer to wear it instead.

"We said a year at least," she reminded him quietly. "We said when James was born that we'd wait until he was a year old before we even _thought _about another one. And now" – she grabbed James's hand as he made to push the turned-over cereal bowl off his tray, probably to enjoy the loud clatter when it hit the ground –"I was thinking we might even want to wait two years."

"But – you do _want _another one, don't you?" Harry couldn't help but ask. They had talked about this before, of course, but the idea of being pregnant again had sparked a far more vehemently negative answer from her than he'd expected.

"Eventually," said Ginny, chewing her bottom lip. "But not _now_."

She shook her head and stood up to bring James's bowl and spoon over to the sink.

"I just got back in shape from having _him_ in me for nine months," she continued. "I was hoping I might get one last season with the Harpies. Jones said she'd take me back in a second and I want to be able to really say goodbye to it before I'm done for good.

"And I want to get to know this one before we go adding another baby to the chaos," Ginny ruffled James's hair and he looked up at her with a beatific smile, his one tooth shining pearly white. "He's only gotten the limelight for ten months. That's hardly long enough. There are three years between Charlie and Percy and I think it made a big difference. When they're two, they're just starting to really figure everything out, talking and running and drawing... Don't you want to see _all _of that?"

Harry sighed, admitting defeat, and Ginny leaned over to kiss his cheek.

"Timing is everything," she whispered.

"I suppose it is," he agreed, grinning ruefully as he glanced at his watch. "Shoot, I've got to get going."

Ginny laughed as she watched him dash up the stairs. Twenty-five and still like a schoolboy….

"I'm sending your mum over here today, though!" he called from out of sight, and Ginny's mirth turned into a grimace.

"No way to argue with him, sometimes, is there, Jamie?" she asked her son, rolling her eyes, but smiling all the same.

As it turned out, though, neither of them got their way in the end. Harry didn't go to work, and Ginny's mother didn't come to look after her. Because just as Harry was pulling on his coat, there was a burst of silvery light and Ron's terrier patronus landed in the middle of their kitchen.

"It's coming! It's coming _now_!" it said in Ron's frantic voice before dissolving into silvery mist.

Harry and Ginny froze, looking at each other, and wide grins broke across both their faces simultaneously.

"Better get over there before he starts hyperventilating," Harry beamed and Ginny laughed.

"Keep me posted," she said, pecking his cheek as he flew out the door. "Did you hear that, Jamie?" she asked, hoisting James out of his chair. "You're going to have a new cousin!"

James squealed, still staring at the place the silver terrier had been, oblivious.

Ginny carried him over to the calendar pinned to the cupboard. "What's the new birthday we'll have to remember?" She ran a finger along the rows of X's until they came to an end. The twenty-ninth. The twenty-ninth of January. She smiled. The date would never be just another date again.

But as Ginny continued to study the calendar, her smile folded itself into a frown. She squinted at the little December calendar in the corner, counting. No, that couldn't be right. She counted again. And again. Because, after all, timing was everything.

**A/N: So… what'd you think? I think Harry was maybe a bit sappy in the beginning, but I think family and kids is a HUGE deal for him, like bigger than it is for most people, and it changes most people's lives considerably. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Please review! **


	2. Telling

**A/N: Finally part two! :) the second month. This story is mainly supposed to be from Harry's perspective, which I find a bit difficult because I would really like to invite you into Ginny's head and explain what exactly she is thinking and feeling, as well as incorporate some scenes Harry isn't a part of. As it is, there are a few bits in this chapter that, for the story's sake are not strictly Harry's PoV, but I tried quite hard not to slip into other people's heads very much, either. I'm afraid not understanding where Ginny's coming from may antagonize her a bit in this chapter, so I hope you'll be patient and wait around for the explanation behind her actions before you judge her too harshly. :D**

**Also, a few of you lovely reviewers (thanks a ton BTW) pointed out to me that I had Rose's birthday coincide with Severus Snape's birthday. This was completely accidental and one of the few bits of Potter trivia that hadn't come across yet, so thank you for pointing that out. I picked her birthday randomly before I even started this story, but as it happens, it actually helps my timeline to push her birthdate back a bit. So I've changed the last chapter just slightly so that now it takes place on January 29 instead of the 9****th****, and James is ten months old in it. **

**I hope you enjoy and I don't own anything! **

Big blue eyes blinked up at Harry from folds of satiny pink, already infused with curiosity, he thought. She might look just exactly like Ron, but already Harry thought his niece was taking after her mother. She looked like a rosebud, all swaddled in pink as she was, with a halo of downy, bright red hair. He knew that Ron and Hermione had chosen the name months ago, but he couldn't help but think this baby would have been called Rose no matter what they had picked out.

What would it be like, he wondered, to have a daughter? Pink. From her little rosebud lips puckering together, to the small pile of folded laundry in the rocking chair, to the walls of the nursery upstairs. James's baby things were an array of colors, but everything Rose had seemed to be the same shade of soft, petal-pink. But Harry didn't think he'd mind seeing nothing but pink, somehow.

"She's a doll, isn't she?" Ginny breathed, slipping onto the seat beside Harry and leaning over to look down at the baby, too.

Harry nodded, suppressing a chuckle "Ron's been bragging about her 'round the office all month."

Rose cooed, pushing one of her little hands out of the blanket. James, attention caught by the noise, looked up from the blocks he was knocking into one another. He let out a squeal of indignation when he saw his parents so absorbed with something that wasn't him and pulled himself up on Harry's knee to get a peek at this seemingly-more-important intruder.

"What do you think, Jamie?" Ginny asked, carefully lifting Rose out of Harry's arms, and lowering herself to the floor so that James could see the baby. "You know who this is. It's your cousin, Rosie, remember? Come and look at your cousin, Jamie."

But after a curious glance revealed the bundle did not contain a puppy or a lizard or anything of remote intrigue, James became distinctly disinterested. He plopped down heavily and reached for the truck Hermione's parents had brought for him along with gifts for little Rose.

Ginny laid Rose gently on a quilt spread over the carpet and dangled a brightly-colored set of plastic keys in the baby's line of sight, catching her sparkling blue eyes. "Don't you want to play with your cousin, James?" she tried to coax, but James was too busy zooming his truck into the wall to pay attention to his mother.

Harry laughed and scooped his son off the floor and into his lap, truck and all. After his tiny, delicate niece, James seemed plenty grown and rough-and-tumble at eleven months.

"Doesn't seem like he's very interested in sharing his toys or his mummy just yet," he said, blowing a raspberry on James's cheek.

As James squealed with laughter, Ginny looked down at the carpet, biting her lip. Harry struggled to sit up to get a better look at her. The firelight was glinting strangely in her eyes and it took him a moment to realize it was because they were brimming with wetness.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, alarmed.

Ginny sniffed and swiped angrily at her cheeks. "Nothing."

"Obviously something's wrong," Harry protested as she pushed herself to her feet.

"I'm just… being stupid," Ginny choked, blinking furiously.

"Ginny, talk to me," he implored, shifting James in his arms as he stood and looked at her with more than a little concern. "You keep doing this, and it's starting to freak me out. What's going on?"

But she just shook her head and fled the sitting room, tears beginning to stream down her face.

Harry sank back down to the sofa, defeated.

XxX

"Ginny?"

Hermione paused in the hall as Ron and her parents went ahead of her into the sitting room, laughing over something or other.

Ginny mopped her face with a tissue and leaned into the hall mirror, raising her wand to erase the tear tracks.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked softly, coming to stand beside her friend.

Ginny nodded, swallowing. "Hormones," she muttered, giving a weak laugh. "I was never this weepy with James, but now every little thing sets me off. You know what it was this time? James wasn't interested in playing with Rose and I thought 'what if he hates having a baby in the house?' So rational, right?"

She laughed again even as a few more tears leaked out. "Merlin, I'm a mess. It's no wonder Harry's ready to get me a room at the mental ward in St. Mungo's."

"Ginny, you have to tell him," Hermione said, her gentle tone taking on admonishment and slight shock. "I thought you were going to last week!"

"I was," Ginny said miserably, keeping her voice low so that it would not carry over the conversation in the sitting room. "But… the timing was just never right…."

"In a month you haven't found a way to bring it up?" Hermione asked incredulously. "Not even a quick 'by the way, we're going to have another baby' into a dinner conversation?"

"I know, but… it's just – you wouldn't understand," she sighed, placing a hand over her still-flat stomach and staring down at her fanned fingers.

"What wouldn't I –" Hermione began, but broke off as Harry came around the door frame, carrying James under his arm.

"There you are," he said, looking relieved to find Ginny put-together again. "Everything… okay?"

"Yeah," Ginny smiled, reaching out to take James into her own arms. "Hermione was just patching me up."

"She's good at that," Harry agreed, giving Hermione a grateful smile, which she returned slightly guiltily.

Hermione didn't like knowing about the new baby even before Harry did, but it wasn't her part to let on. Ginny had desperately needed a confidante and Hermione had been the one to find her in tears the first time.

Harry led Ginny and James back into the now-crowded sitting room and Hermione followed, allowing her face to fall anxiously for a moment behind their backs.

Hermione's parents were, of course, ooing and ahing over their granddaughter while Ron lounged on the sofa, grinning proudly. Harry flopped down beside him and nudged him in the ribs, smirking. Ron merely shrugged at him, unabashed.

"I've had an idea," Mrs. Granger announced, kneeling beside the baby and smiling as Rose waved a little fist. "How about the four of you go out tonight? Granddad and I can watch the kids. You lot go and enjoy yourselves."

"Really?" Ron said, sitting up and looking rather eager. For all he loved each moment spent with his daughter, it had been ages since the four of them had been able to go out, just the four of them.

"Even this little monster?" Harry asked, lifting James up.

"We'd be happy to," Mrs. Granger smiled.

"I don't know, Mum," Hermione said pensively, sucking on her cheek as she looked down at her daughter.

"Honestly, sweetheart," her mother insisted. "We'll be fine for a few hours. Go out, have a few drinks, enjoy being _young _for a change. With Harry and Ron leaving tomorrow, you ought to blow off some steam."

But Hermione still looked apprehensive. "It's just… we've never left her…."

"Hermione," Harry said, looking at her earnestly. "Take it from someone approaching the one year marker of parenthood. _Never _turn down an _offer _for free babysitting. You know how often they come along? You'll go mad if you don't grab a break once in a while."

"The boy speaks wisdom beyond his years," Hermione's father chuckled and Hermione cast him a look, which only made him chuckle more.

"Harry and Ron have to get up early tomorrow," she said. "They've got to be ready to lead a team –"

"Oh, come on, Hermione," Ron pleaded. "We won't be out late. Just a couple drinks."

"It must be ten months since you've been able to go out together," Mrs. Granger put in coaxingly.

"Longer than that," Ron said with a long-suffering sigh. "James was born just before Hermione got pregnant and Ginny's a bitter sober." He smirked at his sister's sharp look. "If she couldn't drink, the rest of us couldn't drink in front of her. It's going on two years since we've kept Hannah company at the Leaky. Come on, Hermione. I'll be gone for my birthday, we've got to celebrate now."

Hermione's lips twitched and they could tell she was relenting.

"You can't spend every waking moment right by her side," Mrs. Granger said softly, laying a hand on Rose, but looking at her daughter.

"Reckon the other kids'll think it's weird when she gets on the train," Ron nodded, and Hermione finally smiled.

"Alright. But not a late night, mind you," she said, eyeing Harry and Ron sternly as they high-fived in triumph. "You're off to save the world at the crack of dawn, remember."

"Whatever you say," Harry grinned.

"You know, why don't you three go," Ginny piped up, stepping away from the wall and wrapping her arms around herself. "James's been fussy lately – teething. Thank you so much for offering to take him, Megan, Paul, but I think I better just take him home."

"No, come on, Ginny!" Ron begged, looking at her with big, crestfallen eyes. "We're leaving for _three weeks _in the morning!"

"I don't think I'm up for drinks tonight," Ginny said firmly, sinking to the floor beside James.

"We really won't be out late, Gin," Harry promised.

"You three go ahead," she insisted. "I'm just not up for going to the pub."

She threw a pleading glance at Hermione, who was watching the exchange closely.

"We could do something else," Hermione suggested, reluctant to aid in covering-up, but unable to leave her friend floundering like this. "Maybe catch a film in Muggle London or go to Hogsmeade?"

It took quite a lot of persuasion and pleading looks from the boys, but eventually Ginny reluctantly agreed to accompany them to the Leaky Cauldron. She would just have to work out how to inconspicuously not drink. Harry and Ron eagerly dashed off to fetch cloaks and caps against the late-February chill, and Hermione took the opportunity to drag Ginny into the kitchen and shut the door firmly behind them.

"You _have _to tell him," she told Ginny, turning to face her with insistence blazing in her brown eyes.

"I know I do," Ginny mumbled. "And I will."

"When?" Hermione demanded. "When you're going into labor?"

"Soon," Ginny promised earnestly.

Hermione's gaze softened a little. "_Why _have you kept it a secret so long?" she tried asking again, but Ginny didn't answer, just kept her gaze fixed on the teapot sitting on the counter behind Hermione.

"They're leaving in the morning for _three weeks_, Ginny," Hermione went on, picking up her impatience again. "You can't let him leave without knowing."

Ginny nodded as they heard the boys' boisterous banter coming down the hall.

XxXxX

Harry swung his cloak around his shoulders, pack at his feet. Ginny stood against the counter, watching him with James drowsing in her arms. A dusting of golden dawn light settled over the kitchen, casting it in a shimmering stillness that he wished he could stay in forever. He tried to memorize everything about the moment, the image of his wife and son. It would be what he held onto until he got back here in nearly a month.

He'd thought it would get easier to leave on long missions, but every time he was forced to do it, it seemed incredibly more difficult than the last time. It was these moments that brought out the small part of him that feared not coming back. His own parents had left him when he was little older than James, and though it seemed incredible that the lifetime of moments he had spent wrapped up in his son, James would have no more memory of him than he had of his own parents. He couldn't do that. He couldn't leave his son like that, couldn't leave Ginny alone.

But he had to risk it to keep them safe.

With a heavy sigh, Harry bent down and swung the pack over his shoulder. Ginny lurched away from the counter. Her eyes were oddly bright as she approached him, as though she were brimming with things she could not say. She had been like that all of last night, too. More than once she had turned to him and opened her mouth, looked long and hard at him as though on the verge of speech, but at the last minute seemed to change her mind.

She was giving him one of those long looks now.

"I love you," she finally said, eyes fixed on his. "Be safe. You've – you've got a lot to come home to."

"I know it," he murmured, dipping his head to press his forehead to hers. He wrapped an arm around Ginny's warm, dressing-gown-clad form, cupped his hand around James's feathery-haired head, and breathed in the two of them, trying to hold onto the seconds. But they trickled away like water in cupped hands, and too soon he had to let them go. He pressed his lips one last time to James's brow, kissed Ginny hard and fast on the lips, and stepped away.

"Love you both. I'll be home soon."

And with a wrenching effort, he turned and slid out the back door.

The early-morning February air stung his face and throat, chilled his lungs, but Harry sucked it in letting it bring him down into the world of alertness he would have to be in for the next three weeks.

He had just begun to turn, ready to apparate, when the back door was flung open once more. As he came around, he caught sight of Ginny standing on the porch, arm wrapped around the post as the breeze whipped her hair around her face.

"I'm pregnant!" Her voice cried through the crisp winter air, piercing the morning just before Harry was swallowed up by the suffocating darkness. Just in the nick of time.

**A/N: So? What do you think of that ending? A bit cliffy, isn't it? Sorry 'bout that. I'm working on some more but I don't know when I'll have it up! I wrote this all in one sitting and right now it's past midnight, so if there are any typos or mistakes I apologize. I'm not exactly brilliant at catching those even at full awareness :) Anyway, please review and tell me what you thought! Thanks so much! **


	3. Talking

**A/N: Hello again! Remember me? Yes, it's been quite a while since I've updated. Sorry! But here's the next chapter! It got quite a bit longer than I had intended, and there's just so much I wish I could explain in more detail, like the mission Harry and Ron are on, but I'd like to keep this focused on Al. **

**Alright, I'm quite worried how Ginny may come off in this chapter. I happen to like her quite a bit, but no character is perfect and Ginny's flaws are coming through here. Harry's too, really. But what's a story with no conflict and personal growth, hm? An enormous thanks to all who read and review! You're brilliant, really and truly!**

**Oh yes, and I am not JK Rowling, incase my profile does not get that through clearly enough. Just a Midwestern high school girl writing to pass the time as she waits for snow and procrastinates everything possible.**

"We're going home. Tomorrow."

"But we've only just found –"

"We'll come back later."

"The report –"

"Can be finished in the office."

"But Shepherd's orders. It would only be a few more days!"

"We're going home tomorrow."

"We've got to –"

"We. Are. Going. Home. Tomorrow."

Harry glared at the young man before him – younger than him by just enough that he could pull superiority.

The twenty-one-year-old flushed and tugged at his straw-colored hair, looking down at his shoes. It was his first long mission. He had not yet been fully introduced to the grueling toll of living undercover for weeks on end, how just one more day can so easily turn into just one more week and then two weeks and then who-knew-how-much-longer. The young man was fresh from the training program, lived in a tiny flat by himself, and had something to prove to the department. He would stay out here for months if it meant bringing Elenor Shepherd, head of the Auror department, back a prize.

But the rest of the group had had enough. They were nearly a week late coming home as it was and had only just accomplished the first part in a three part mission: finding their target.

"It's just," the blond man went on bravely, "if we leave now, who knows what could happen before we get back! Full moon's two days away!"

"Exactly," Harry cut in. "We just found a pack of werewolves who were practically _raised _by Fenrir Greyback living three kilometers away from here two days before a full moon. It's too dangerous for us to stay. Shepherd meant us to be out of here long before now."

The blond man met Harry with a steely gaze. "If you're so sure they're going to find this house on the full moon, what could possibly make you think they'll just sit around and _wait _for us to come back? They'll be long gone before sunup and we'll be right back to square one, four months of tracking down the drain. Think of how many attacks that is, how many _lives _that is!"

"And blundering in right now without a plan would do what, besides get half of us put in St. Mungo's – if we're lucky? Explain to me how that would help, Mathers?" Harry demanded, a cutting edge in his voice.

He was tired of having this argument. He was tired of living in this freezing house, bunking in a room with six other guys, crouching in the brush for six-hour shifts in the rain. He was tired and so was everybody else.

The blond man – Nigel Mathers – threw up his hands angrily. "Then make a plan! We've got two days! Instead of sitting here exchanging baby pictures, why don't you and Weasley actually _do _something?"

Ron, watching silently from the kitchen table, pulled out his wand and began tapping it menacingly against his knee, scowling. Mathers cast him a fleeting, apprehensive look, but did not back down. Harry closed his eyes, trying to find patience somewhere inside of him.

"We would need a solid forty-eight hours of surveillance before we could get a plan with even the remotest chances of success. How would it be if we only managed to get half of them because of poor timing? We've got one shot at this, and we're not messing up because you're chomping at the bit."

"We're not messing up just so you can blow up balloons for your kid's birthday party, either," Mathers shot back.

Ron stood up.

"Oi! Do I need to remind you who's in charge of this team?" he barked, making Mathers flinch slightly. "If Potter says we're pulling out, damn it then, we're pulling out! But if you want to stay here and get shredded to pieces by ten blood-thirsty wolves night after tomorrow, I don't have a problem with it."

There was a beat of silence in which Ron scowled at Mathers, Mathers glowered at the floor, and Harry watched them both closely out of the corners of his eyes.

"We're leaving tomorrow," he said at least. His voice was quiet and low, but it cut through the room like a blade. "End of story. Go pack."

Mathers gave them both a mutinous look, but that was all he could do. He turned and stormed up the rickety staircase. Ron dropped back into his chair, letting out an explosive breath.

"Little –" he went on to utilize several of the words Hermione would have his head for if he were anywhere near their daughter, looking marginally more cheerful when he was through. "Thinks just 'cause he got out of training with high marks he knows what he's doing."

Harry sank into a seat opposite Ron at the tiny table crammed into what was barely more than a pantry. He ran his hands over his face, pushing his glasses up into his hair.

"But he's kind of right," he muttered into his hands. "They're going to find this house on the full moon and you can bet they won't stick around. We've just coast ourselves four, five months of work."

"Doesn't mean we're better off pulling a half-arse plan together and running into their hide-out like a band of morons," Ron snorted. "We've been at this too long. If we'd been looking in the right direction two weeks ago, maybe we'd've got this done, but we can't fix that now. Merlin, it's been close to a month! That's half my daughter's life I've missed already!"

He pulled an already-tattered-and-worn photograph out of his back pocket and stared down at it with a hard look of longing. Harry didn't have to see it to know exactly what Ron was looking at: Rose and Hermione taken the day Rose was born. "She probably won't even remember who I am."

Harry snorted. "I think she'll remember pretty quick. Besides, you've got it easy now, she won't remember you were ever gone once you get back. James'll be screaming at the top of his lungs every time I step out the back door for a good week."

Harry fell into contemplating his hands pressed against the rough grain of the tabletop. He could still make out faintly red marks around the fingernails of his left hand, which had been torn away when he'd apparated to the ministry nearly a month ago. He hadn't noticed until Ron had asked him what the hell he'd done to his hand, too preoccupied with the information that had just been flung on him. If he had heard right. If he hadn't in fact just imagined it.

For one month he'd had that bobbing at the back of his mind, distracting him when he could not afford to be distracted. Those three seconds had set him off kilter for the entire mission. Under any other circumstances he would have been elated to hear that news. But she had waited until the last possible second, had not been able to bring herself to mention it earlier that morning or even the night before. It filled him with an uneasiness that would not be shaken and a million things that might be wrong streamed through his head on a continual reel, try as he might to fight them down.

Across the table, Ron was still talking, oblivious to Harry's turbulent thoughts. "… better stop with this shite before Rosie starts doing that or I'll be held captive by a one-year-old."

"How long before you reckon we'll be back here?" Harry asked abruptly.

"Well…" Ron leaned forward, pulling a piece of parchment covered with scrawls of observations and calculations. He studied it for a moment, frowning, then looked up at Harry. "In all honesty, the thing to do would be to get back here the day after the full moon. Whatever Mather thinks, they won't have time or energy to run, even if they do find this place, and the chances are good that most of them will've made it back to the house to recover. They'll be in no state to put up a fight."

"The day after the full moon," Harry murmured.

"Yeah, that's the thirtieth," Ron confirmed, grimacing in apology.

"James's birthday," Harry sighed, slumping back in his chair. "James's _first _birthday."

How could he miss that? James would hardly know the difference this year, but he'd know later when he was old enough to look at all the pictures and realize Harry wasn't in any of them. And Harry would know. The thought already made him feel like the worst father in the world.

And if he pushed back the mission? Well, they would almost certainly lose everything they'd been working towards for months. Greyback's successor of sorts might run anywhere, and they would be back at the beginning again. He'd only be back in a house like this in another five or six months, and what was more, the werewolves would know they were being tracked and be ready for an ambush. And then… if Ginny was pregnant… he could hardly leave her alone for who-knew-how-long _then_.

Whichever way they played it, he'd be sacrificing something.

Ron was watching him. "Look, we can't come back here again in two days, and Shepherd'll know it. Half the team's getting sick, we've been living on coffee all month, and we don't know _for sure _what the circumstances'll be. We're done for now, whether Shepherd likes it or not. Besides, you're heading this. Just say you don't reckon it's safe to come back until the thirty-first and who the hell's going to say different?"

"Mathers?" Harry suggested.

"He makes so much as a squeak and I'll hex the little blighter across the Channel," Ron promised, fingering his wand.

Harry smiled weakly. He was too tired and sore to worry over it much longer. He was going home tomorrow morning and that was the only thought keeping him going. After James's birthday, after he knew for sure if and when he was going to have another child and what on Earth had made Ginny tell him how she had, he would figure out the rest.

XxXxX

"Dadadadadadadadadaaaah!" James squealed directly into Harry's ear, his arms so tight around Harry's neck it was starting to hurt. Harry wouldn't have taken all the gold in Gringotts to be anywhere else.

"Missed you, buddy," he murmured into James's shoulder, holding his son's little body tight to his chest.

"He missed you terribly," Ginny told Harry from his side, her own arm wrapped around Harry's waist.

Harry looked at her over James's shoulder. She was smiling now as she watched the two of them, had been thrilled and relieved to have him home again, but there was tension in her face, even now. He wanted to lean down and kiss her, to tell her everything would be okay, but something held him back, and it was not merely the fact that he knew less than she did about everything being okay; he had told worse lies than that, after all.

It was late. Much later than Harry had wanted to be home. Shepherd, as they all could have predicted, was not at all pleased with the outcome of a month's worth of undercover operating with no contact. It had taken most of the day to convince her not to send them all straight back to the matchbox in the woods they called a house and then to file reports and debrief and every other tedious thing that came after long missions. And then Shepherd had wanted a plan for how to proceed.

Harry had sent word that he would be coming home as soon as he reached the ministry, and then word that it would be late once he met with Shepherd, but Ginny had kept James up anyway, and Harry was glad. He could not have waited another night to see his son again. But it didn't take him long to go from excited to shrieks to nearly dozing on Harry's shoulder.

They put James to bed together. Harry very much wanted to collapse onto his own bed and sleep until the birthday party in a day and a half, but the confusion and worry that had been buzzing in him since he'd left a month before would not allow for that.

"Are you hungry?" Ginny asked in a whisper as she shut James's door. "I could heat up dinner for you."

Realizing exactly how ravenous he was, Harry nodded and followed her down to the kitchen.

"I don't suppose Ron's cooking skills have much improved, have they?" Ginny asked, cutting up fresh bread to go with the stew. She laughed a little, and Harry rather thought it sounded nervous. Why was she nervous?

"Gin?"

"Mum'll probably be forcing food down your throats by tomorrow," she went on, seeming not to have heard him.

"Ginny?"

She pulled the pot out of a cupboard they kept charmed to refrigerate and jabbed her wand at the stove to warm up the burner.

"I mean, it's as though she thinks you don't have any food when you're not coming to her table once a week –"

"Ginny."

Harry stepped in front of her as she made to retrieve a jug of pumpkin juice and placed his hands on her shoulders. She froze, catching her breath.

"Before I left – _right _before I left – you said something…." He paused trying to find the right words, hoping she would jump in with an explanation. She stayed silent. "Are – are you – we – going to have another baby?" he finally choked out.

Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, Ginny nodded.

An explosion seemed to go off in Harry's head, elation and fear skyrocketing in equal measure. Because Ginny was not smiling. She was not laughing or twirling or glowing the way she had when she'd told him she was pregnant with James. He took a deep breath. "When?"

"I'm due in October," she told him in barely more than a whisper. "The sixth."

Harry did the math in his head. That was little more than six months away. He glanced down at her midriff and thought there was already the tiniest of bulges visible there.

"And…how long have you known?" Maybe she had only found out for sure the morning he left.

Ginny finally looked away from him. She stepped back out of his grip and pulled her cardigan closer around herself. "Since the day Rose was born."

The morning rushed back to Harry as though he had used a timeturner. Their discussion had quickly flown out of his head with Rose's arrival and work and James starting to pick up words and walk and every other trivial, day-to-day thing, but now he remembered it with vivid clarity.

"So…" he began, trying not to let anxiety reign in his voice. "How come you waited until the morning I left to tell me?"

Ginny turned away from him, and Harry's stomach plummeted. Only the summer before, Percy and Audrey had dealt with months of complications with their second child, only to miscarry shortly before September.

"Why?" Harry asked again, voice shooting up an octave without his control. "Ginny, why didn't you tell me earlier? Is something wrong? Is there a problem?"

He stepped forward, catching her in his arms, hugging her, but she writhed out of his grip again, shaking her head.

"No, nothing's wrong. He's fine. He's perfect." But tears were rolling down her face even as she said it.

"He?" Harry repeated.

Ginny nodded, sniffling. "I found out yesterday."

A hand fluttered to her stomach, lying delicately over where their second son was, tiny heart pounding away. She bowed her head so that a curtain of red hair fell in her face, but Harry could still see the snatches of emotion chasing themselves around there. None of them looked happy.

"Then…. Then what's the matter?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell me about the baby?"

"I –" Ginny turned away again, but she kept turning until she came around to face him once more. "Because I knew how excited you would be!" she burst out.

Harry blinked. "And that's not something you want?" he asked incredulously. Indignation was quickly taking over where fear had left off.

"Harry, please, don't get upset –"

"Upset? Ginny, I've been out in the middle of nowhere, chasing werewolves, thinking there was something horribly wrong with you and the baby for four weeks, and that was all because you didn't want me to be _excited _about you being pregnant? I think I've got a right to be a little bit upset!"

"I know it! I know. I wanted to tell you, I tried. Hermione kept telling me –"

"Hermione knew? You told _Hermione _before you thought to let me in on the whole thing?"

"I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened!"

"Did you make sure to get to the _Dailey Prophet_ before tonight? Because I can pretend not to know when the rest of the world finds out, just to make it less awkward."

"I'm sorry! Okay, I'm sorry. It was bad timing –"

"It was like you were going for the worst timing possible! I nearly ripped my hand off apparating after that!"

A loud wail cut through their escalating argument. They both turned to look at the stairs, realizing at the same time that they'd been shouting.

"I'll get him," Ginny mumbled after a moment, shuffling out of the kitchen.

When she had gone, Harry slumped against the counter, raising a hand to rub his temples.

XxX

It took Ginny a while to come back downstairs, even after James's crying had ceased. When she found Harry sprawled on the sofa in the sitting room, all evidence of tears had been erased from her face.

"Stew's burnt," she informed him. "I can make you a sandwich or something instead."

"I'm not hungry anymore," Harry muttered, eyes closed.

"That's ridiculous. You probably haven't eaten all day. It'll take five seconds."

Harry pushed himself upright and opened his eyes. "Ginny. I want to know why you kept this a secret. Or at least, kept it a secret from _me_."

Nothing like this had ever happened between them. Harry could count on one hand the number of real fights they had had in the decade since they had started dating. And nearly all of those had been related to the war or the grief-crazed period afterwards. He just could not understand why she would refuse to share with him something as enormous as the existence of their child.

Ginny sagged visibly. She dropped into a chair across the room from him. Their home was little more than a cottage, the rooms barely a few strides across, but it seemed like they sat on opposite ends of the country.

"I tried to, Harry, I really did. But every time I started, I would see how excited you would be, how happy…" she shook her head despondently, staring at her knees. "And… I just couldn't face that. Because… because _I _didn't feel those things when I thought about our new baby."

Harry gaped at her. New tears had begun to leak out of her eyes, but Ginny kept remarkably composed as she went on.

"I was _disappointed_ when I thought about it. I know that's horrible. What kind of mother is _disappointed_ when she finds out she's going to have a baby? I kept thinking that once I got used to the idea, once it all sank in I would feel like I did when we found out about James, so I kept pushing off telling you until I could be as happy as I knew you would be… but… I'm not."

She buried her face in her hands. Harry continued to stare at her. He knew he ought to go over to her, to comfort her, to say something to alleviate the obvious guilt and misery in her voice, but he could not find a way to close the distance between them.

"Are you saying you don't want him?" he asked. And even though Harry's words were quiet and emotionless, they seemed to carry a shattering force.

Ginny's head snapped up. "Of course not!" Her arms wrapped around her stomach, cradling the yet-unseeable baby inside her. "I – I want him. I love him. I just – I don't want him _now_. We had James so young! I thought we would be able to wait – a long time – before we had any more. I don't want another one _now_."

She leaned forward so that her forehead pressed to her knees, nearly folding in half in the armchair, shoulders shaking. Harry stood. He wanted to go over and hold her, tried to move in that direction. But instead he turned and headed tiredly for the stares.

"Well, he's coming now whether you like it or not."

**A/N: Oh the drama. Well, like it says in the description, getting Albus Severus Potter here is not smooth sailing. I promise you that Ginny loves her son very much – that she loves all of her children liberally and equally. But Al just did not have good timing. *sigh*. **

**Anyway, so I know this has taken me quite a while to write, but I'm really hoping for some feedback on this chapter. I only got four reviews for the last chapter, and although I try not to be review-greedy these days, when I compare it with the thirteen from the first chapter, I can't help but be quite disappointed. Please, if you read this, let me know what you think about it. I know you must think something. I cringe at how much I'm afraid people will review to tell me they hate Ginny after this, but I'd even take that if it were some kind of feedback on the story. I'm really beginning to be desperate over here. **


	4. Dancing

**A/N: Hi! I'm back super quick, huh? Well my school's power went out at ten o'clock this morning, so I got some unexpected free-time. Sadly this chapter is not particularly exciting, I don't think. Not compared with last chapter or the chapters that will follow it. But it was necessary, I think. **

**And THANK YOU so much for the feedback from the last chapter. It really helped a ton and I appreciate it so much! I doubt this one will elicit such a response, but I still hope very much to hear from you. :)**

Hermione poked her head out of one of the cubicles in the Auror office's maze of narrow halls and looked around carefully. Her eyes rested on a purple hat bobbing along an isle two cubicles over, and a door opening across the high-ceilinged room, but only for a moment.

"Alright, she's not out here, you're safe," she said over her shoulder in an exasperated voice. Then, letting out a sigh, added, "Yes, I'm sure."

A second later, Harry emerged from behind his filing cabinet, pulling his cloak on and looking around cautiously. He caught sight of Hermione's expression and shrugged sheepishly. "You can never be too careful," he muttered, striding swiftly along the isle.

"Is this really what you called me down here for?" Hermione asked him incredulously, hurrying to keep up. "So I could be your look-out?"

"Well, Ron's got the day off, and if I have to stay here past eight _again _I'm going to start forgetting what my house looks like. I've got pictures of Ginny and James, but…"

He smirked as she made to swat the back of his head with a file she was carrying.

"Honestly, though," Hermione said, lowering her voice as they rounded a corner and passed a group of Aurors holding a raucous conversation. "Why is Shepherd grinding you like this? Ron was second-in-command of that mission and he's only had to stay after once or twice."

"Ron's got baby pictures to wriggle his way out of late nights with," Harry told her.

Hermione frowned at the thought of their daughter being put to this use. "Just found our dinner conversation for tonight."

"Oh, come on, Hermione. Then he'll know I told on him! Besides, don't you like having your husband home at a reasonable hour?"

"He shouldn't be using Rose to get out of work." But her expression had softened somewhat. "Besides, Ginny and I could keep each other company. How's she doing, by the way? I feel like I haven't talked to her in ages. Is everything going well with the baby?"

"Nearly there," Harry muttered, eyes alighting on the door as they rounded another corner. He sped up, opting not to answer Hermione's inquiries.

"Potter!"

Both of them skidded to a halt, Harry closing his eyes regretfully. _So close_. They turned to see the imperious form of Elenor Shepherd marched towards them, short wisps of steel-gray hair blowing about her face.

"Glad I caught you," she said curtly. Harry had rarely heard her be anything _but_ curt, as it happened. "I've been looking for someone to head an investigation tomorrow, and it looks like I've found my man. Old abandoned house near Liverpool we think Greyback used back during the war. Possibility they might be returning there. We need a thorough sweep of the premises. Erikson's waiting in the meeting room to get a team together. Better contact them this evening by floo to get confirmation as you'll be leaving quite early tomorrow. I want your plans on my desk before you leave tonight."

After a quick nod to Hermione (who Harry knew was only privy to this kind of information because of her role in the war), Shepherd turned on her heel and walked off, heels clacking on the wood floor.

Harry let out a heavy, dejected sigh and swung his cloak back off. "Exactly how I wanted to spend my evening: telling a bunch of people their weekend's booked playing scavenger hunt for curses in a rotting shack."

Hermione grimaced sympathetically. "At least you're not being sent undercover again."

"For now," Harry muttered. "If we'd been just a _little _bit faster…"

XxXxX

Harry jerked awake. It was too quiet, too cold. He turned over, tangling himself in the knotted sheets, and sat up. A spray of pale moonlight lay over the bedroom, the clock ticking closer to midnight on the bedside table, the glittering glass prism from where came James's soft breathing, the empty pillow beside him.

Harry stared at Ginny's side of the bed, trying to remember if she had even come up that night. He couldn't, but it didn't surprise him. Between his long hours trying to rectify the bungled werewolf case, James's recent spate of colds, and the insomnia Ginny blamed on being pregnant, it seemed a long time since they had both slept in the same room.

Harry slumped back against the headboard and closed his eyes, trying to slip back into sleep while there was time. But the stillness that had woken him kept his mind buzzing. He could not settle in it, no matter how much his body ached for sleep. With a reluctant sigh, he swung the covers back and shuffled out onto the landing.

It was dark, no light from downstairs or under James's door breaking the night. As was his habit whenever he passed his son's bedroom door, Harry gently turned the knob and pushed it open just enough to peek in, to assure himself that all was as it should be. James slept soundly, his hair sticking up in all directions and little fingers curled around the little black toy dog Teddy had given him for his first birthday. He snuffled in his sleep, his nose bright pink even by the narrow shaft of wandlight, but for now, James was asleep, and Ginny was not in here with him.

Harry silently closed the door and padded lightly down the stairs, squinting into the gloom. As he rounded the banister, a rustle came from near the sofa, followed by a low groan.

"Gin? Are you down here?" he whispered, pointing his wand where he knew the fireplace was so that warm flames burst to life there.

Ginny was stretched out on the couch, a blanket pulled haphazardly over herself and getting tangled as she turned over, one hand on the small, but prominent, bulge of her stomach.

"I forgot how bloody _uncomfortable _it is to be a human cultivation station for nine months," she grimaced, sitting up and rubbing her lower back.

"An interesting way of putting it," Harry said quietly, sitting down beside her and draping the blanket evenly over her shoulders.

She drew the fabric tightly around her shoulders and leaned back into the couch, closing her eyes. They sat side by side in a strange silence balancing somewhere between comfortable and uncomfortable.

The anger and hurt from the night Harry had returned home a month before had blown out by the next morning. They had murmured apologies over breakfast and gone on with preparations for James's birthday, and then for dealing with George's birthday two days later, always a difficult affair each year no matter how much time had passed. Juggling work and James and the rest of the family and Teddy, who had been a bit shaken by Harry's overrun-mission, the topic of the baby had been carefully laid aside. No one had known except Hermione until a week earlier, at Teddy's eight birthday party where it would have been next to impossible to hide it from Mrs. Weasley's keen eyes.

The pair of them went on with everything else normally, but a frostiness had settled between them, keeping them always at a distance. However polite they were outwardly to one another, unsaid things floated thick in the air.

"Why didn't you come up to bed?" Harry asked after a minute. "It would be a lot easier on your back than down here."

"The stairs are a steep price to pay when you're sore and exhausted and ten pounds heavier than normal –" she broke off to sneeze into the back of her hand "– and finally catching your son's cold."

"Bless you," Harry said politely as Ginny sneezed again.

"Thank you."

They lapsed again into silence. That too-polite, too-still silence that had only ever fallen between them in those months right after the war when gravity seemed to have turned off for the entire world and everything was not as it should have been. It was a lonely sort of silence, despite sitting close enough to feel each other's warmth, and it seemed that the fire did little to dispel the heavy night.

"Tell me it's going to be okay."

Ginny's murmur was so quiet Harry might not have heard it over the crackle of the fire. She had not looked at him, had not moved, but he could see in her eyes when he turned to look at her that she had said it.

"Why would it not be?" he asked, but he knew what she meant and why she had to ask.

Ginny shrugged, drawing her knees up as close to her chin as they would go these days. Harry let his breath out and stood, milling over to the fire. He ran his fingers over the trinkets on the mantle, photos of their wedding and Teddy and James, a picture Dominique had drawn for Ginny when she'd come for the day a few weeks ago, the tin of flew powder, the little porcelain carousel Molly and Arthur had given them for their anniversary a few years ago.

Harry's fingers paused on the carousel, absently tracing the pattern at its base. It had been just two horses when they'd gotten it: a black one and a copper-ish one. But when James was born, a little dark colt had appeared, stumbling between its parents. It was then that Harry had noticed the thin white mark on the black horse's brow was shaped like a lightning bolt, and the copper-colored one had large brown eyes. Ginny had been elated with the discovery.

He carefully lifted it down now and flipped it over to wind the base. A sweet, tinkling melody that Ginny often hummed around the house spilled out into the room and the horses began to gallop gracefully in their circle. Harry set it back on the mantle and turned his back to the fire, hands in his pockets. Ginny looked at him, as though still waiting for an answer.

"C'm'ere," he sighed, moving over to take her hands and gently pull her up off the sofa into his arms. "I dunno. Is it going to be okay?"

"I asked first," she said into his shoulder.

They began to sway to the music, moving in a slow circle, the only kind of dancing Harry knew how to do. Ginny leaned most of her wait onto him, the bump of their son pressed between them.

As they slowly revolved, Harry opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to gather his thoughts. He could pour out a motivating speech in the middle of a crisis, get people to readily charge into battle with a few words, talk down an irrational criminal, had even become quite proficient at finding the right words to comfort and assure his young godson, but expressing a matter as personal and emotional as this was beyond him.

"I… grew up… in a house where I wasn't wanted," he finally began haltingly, resting his chin on the top of Ginny's head so that she could not look at his face. "I don't want any of our kids – any kid I know – to feel anything close to that."

Ginny inhaled a shaky breath, and Harry could feel a few tears soaking through his shirt. It was unlike Ginny to cry so much as she had been lately. It unnerved him.

"I don't want that either," she whispered. "But I grew up in a house where there were a lot of us very close together. I was lucky because I was the youngest and the only girl, but all of us felt ignored or left-out or not good enough or important enough at one time or another. Like we could just drop off the face of the earth and nobody would ever notice.

"Charlie actually tried running away once when I was a baby. He made it to the Leaky Cauldron through the floo and who knows where he would have ended up if Tom hadn't stopped him and gotten a hold of Dad. Bill was the one that noticed he was gone in the first place. I don't want our children to feel like that either. You saw what it did to Percy and Ron, Bill and Charlie got as far as they could as fast as they could…"

"Well," Harry said after a moment, wrapping his arms tighter around Ginny and finally looking down at her. "There's two of us and there'll be two of them come October. We aren't outnumbered just yet."

"I wish I could want him with all my heart," she murmured. "But I don't."

And this time, so close together in the quiet, without the dulling anger, Harry felt the words cut into him. He hugged Ginny tighter as if he could pull her away from those thoughts. But he couldn't. Not even she could do that.

The carousel on the mantle wound to a halt, the tinkling melody dying, the horses becoming stationary once more. Harry and Ginny stopped turning and stood perfectly still, holding onto one another as if to stop from being lost alone in the darkness.

"You'll want him," Harry said softly into the silence. "Until then, I'll want him enough for the both of us." He kissed her forehead and let her go, turning to collapse on the sofa. "Go up to bed. Get some sleep."

She stood shivering in the middle of the room for a moment, arms wrapped around herself, before slowly going up to the bedroom alone. They both wished the music could have gone on a little longer, that the spell it cast not be broken so soon. The frostiness had melted between them, but that was all that had changed.

**A/N: Not exceedingly long, either, is it? Well, I hope you enjoyed it all the same. I'll admit that I don't write or read a LOT of romantic fics, and this one is certainly the most I've focused on that sort of relationship. I hope to keep it changing and interesting and bring! **

**Also, as a side note, when I said 'the spell it cast', I didn't mean literally that the music was enchanted. I don't mean to insult anyone's intelligence by pointing that out, but I figured with the context I should clarify. I would be one to ask that kind of question. **

**Thanks for reading and I very much hope and wish that I will be able to read some more of your thoughts soon! **


	5. Doubting

**A/N: Aha! Finally done! Better get this up quick and cut the A/N short. Just a quick shout out to all my lovely reviewers! Thank you guys so much! Gah, this story is probably the most difficult to write if only because I'm afraid every chapter is going to make you all hate me… but there's no plot without conflict, right? Okay, read and then please let me know what you think! **

The fast, echoey thrum pushed its way through the room as though it came across miles and not mere inches.

"There it is," Madam Denin announced with a satisfied smile, holding her instrument on the side of Ginny's arching stomach. "A nice, strong heartbeat."

Harry beamed. "Hear that, Jamie? That's your baby brother."

"Bah-bee?" James asked, making a grab for Harry's glasses.

Harry caught his hand, chubby fingers half an inch from the lenses. "That's right. That's the baby's heartbeat. Where's Jamie's?"

James put a hand in the middle of his chest. "Bum-bum-bum-bum!"

"He's going to be a healer, I can tell already," Ginny said, lips twitching. She was stretched on the sofa, the mediwitch, Madam Denin, kneeling beside her. Teddy leaned over an arm chair, peaking up from his fringe as though he wasn't sure he should really be privy to all this.

"Are you ready to see your baby?" Madam Denin asked cheerfully.

Nobody would have noticed if they weren't watching for it, but Harry saw Ginny's smile become ever so slightly forced.

"Yes, we'd love to," he answered for her, hoping in the back of his mind that the baby could hear the excitement in his voice.

The mediwitch fiddled a dial on the instrument and a holographic image projected out of the top, exactly like what showed up on Muggle ultrasound monitors. The two-dimensional, blue-black image shifted hazily as Madam Denin adjusted the instrument to get a better position, and then the distinct outline of a head, little arms, hands and fingers, a foot materialized in the dimmed living room.

Harry couldn't help his breath from catching a little. He remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on James, his own flesh and blood, the first person to share his DNA outside of the Dursleys that he could really remember seeing right there next to him. The novelty had not worn off with this baby, even though he held his one-year-old son in his arms, messy black hair as proof of the phenomenon.

Ginny was gazing at the image with a strange expression. She smiled, like any mother would upon seeing her baby, which was enough for Madam Denin to beam happily at her, but there was more to the expression that Harry did not want to see. She seemed almost resigned. He turned to Teddy instead.

"What do you think, mate?" he asked, grinning at Teddy's slightly gaping mouth.

Teddy cautiously moved around the chair and took a few steps closer, squinting at the fuzzy image, shifting as the instrument moved along Ginny's stomach.

"He's so… _tiny_," was Teddy's appraisal.

Harry chuckled. "They tend to start out that way. You were that little, too, once upon a time."

Teddy looked back at him incredulously. "Nuh-uh."

"You better believe it, kid," Harry laughed.

"Well, he is right. This one's a bit on the small side," Madam Denin told them, shifting her instrument to get a better look at the baby from the side. "But, looking at his parents, I'm not too worried. Er, no offense," she added, glancing from Ginny to Harry.

Harry shrugged, grinning sheepishly. He got that a lot. _You're Harry Potter? I thought you'd be taller_…. Ron never failed to find it hysterical.

"Well, everything else looks good," Madam Denin declared, giving one final sweep over Ginny's stomach. She paused the image again at a good side angle and flicked her wand at it. A photograph of the image seemed to peel itself away from the original and fluttered to the floor. Then she tucked the tool into the little black bag and handed Ginny a towel to wipe the residual potion off her stomach.

"Did you want a copy?" she asked, indicating the picture.

"A couple, if that's okay," Harry told her.

He had found out today that he was being sent on assignment again. They had narrowed it down to three prospective congregation points for the werewolf pack's new base. Shepherd had told him he would be leading the stake-outs with that sort of no-nonsense glint in her eyes that told him he better get this job done, and he better do it himself. No subs, no mistakes. But at least he could carry pictures with him.

XxX

"Can we go now?" Teddy asked after Madam Denin had left.

He was hovering anxiously by the back door, casting longing looks at the beautiful late-May weather, the broomstick he'd gotten for his eighth birthday just a month ago over his shoulder.

"Sure thing," Harry told him, glowing a little to see his godson so excited for flying. It had been a rough few first lessons, but Teddy was finally getting the hang of it.

Ginny looked wistfully at the broom as she tried to persuade James to eat his apple sauce. Her restrictions now included flying, just as the weather turned really good and the Harpies began their season.

"Have fun," she told them as Teddy raced into the back garden, Harry hot on his heels.

XxX

"Did my dad like flying?" Teddy asked, hovering ten feet in the air and concentrating on keeping his broom steady.

Harry hesitated. "You know, I don't know," he admitted apologetically.

"I figure he probably didn't," Teddy said. He sounded as though the question weren't important, but Harry could see the disappointment in his eyes. "I just wondered."

It killed Harry how much he didn't know the people he missed so much. He hadn't even realized how many things he didn't ask until it was too late. And now Teddy wanted answers and he couldn't give them.

"Do you think the baby will like to fly?" Teddy asked, already moving on to another subject. Harry brought himself back to the present.

"I dunno. Think you'll teach him how to?" he asked, swooping beneath Teddy as he wobbled a little.

"'Course I will," Teddy grinned. "And Jamie. We can all play Quidditch together!"

"We'll have enough for a full match at the Burrow at the rate we're going,"

"That would be wicked!"

Teddy lurched forward to catch one of the little golden helicopters falling off the Maple trees like rain. He managed to snatch one out of the air, it's crisp, feathered blade sticking out of Teddy's fist like the wings of a snitch. Teddy raised his fist triumphantly above his head, no doubt imagining that he'd made a game-winning capture.

His broom jerked forward and Harry shot out a hand to grab the back of his shirt before he could smash headlong into a tree trunk, shaking his head when Teddy looked back at him with a sheepish grin. His godson on a broom might be a combination destined to give him a heart attack.

XxX

Harry brought Teddy back to his grandmother's after dinner.

"But when will you be back?" his godson asked, hugging the banister and looking anxiously up at him. All the jubilation from flying that afternoon was gone from his face. He looked almost close to tears.

Harry had just told him and Andromeda that he had to be out of contact again. The last, late-running mission had taken a toll on Teddy. Lately he'd taken to making Harry set a date for their next visit whenever they said good-bye.

"Couple of weeks at the most," Harry promised, running a comforting hand through Teddy's turquoise hair. "You'll hardly even know I'm gone," he said, trying for a smile.

Teddy's lip trembled, and when Harry left ten minutes later, he was feeling incredibly guilty.

XxXxX

Harry stifled a sneeze as he toed over some decaying books in a corner of the room and kicked up another plume of dust. Every abandoned shack they scoured was more dilapidated than the last. Wind whistled through the rafters, rain had gotten around the window and rotted the sill. There were no signs that anybody had been here in years. But the concealment enchantments were still in place, so there was always the possibility….

A rickety desk was shoved in a corner. Harry pulled open drawers mechanically, not expecting to find anything of use in them, and had to stifle another sneeze. Merlin, he'd inhaled more dust in the last week and a half than he had in the ten years he'd spent living in a cupboard. He rubbed his nose and squinted into the drawer.

There was something in there after all: an old, leather-bound journal falling apart at the seams. He reached for it and gathered by the brief tugging sensation that attempted to hold his arm back as his fingers neared the cover that there had once been security charms placed around it to keep unwanted eyes out. But they had long-since faded. Carefully, he pulled the book out and flipped open the cover.

A wave of shock crashed over him when he saw the neat, looping writing scrawled faintly across the rotting pages. He recognized that handwriting. It was Remus's. He dropped heavily into the desk chair, vaguely surprised that it didn't collapse under his weight.

It was hard to read what Remus had written because the ink was so light and water had seeped into the drawer from a leak in the roof and damaged the pages. But Harry made out the date at the top. It was marked sometime in September of 1997. That would be about the time Remus had taken off. About the time Tonks was pregnant with Teddy.

The gist of the entry seemed to be Remus justifying his actions, although Harry could only read parts of it. He tried to turn the page, but the parchment had stuck together from the water.

So Remus had come back here, to live among the werewolves when he'd left his family. To live among his fellows, he wrote in this journal. He kept saying the child would be better off not knowing him….

Maybe it was seeing the longing look in Teddy's eyes when he looked at pictures of his parents, maybe it was being an orphan himself, but some of his anger from all those years ago rekindled in Harry's stomach as he stared down at the words. But part of it was now directed inward at himself because he, too, was now a father who left his children for this place.

XxX

"Hey."

Harry looked around from the small, grimy kitchen window. "Hey. Didn't think anyone else was up."

Ron rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, reaching blindly for a mug. "I wasn't until you turned the bleeding hall light on."

"Sorry," said Harry sheepishly. "Thought I shut the door."

"Damn thing goes right under it into my eyes. I swear this house has a vendetta against me. The back door almost took my fingers off last night."

Harry forced a laugh as Ron eyed the coffee pot suspiciously before pouring himself a pot.

"Anyway, you know you're not scheduled for watch for another two hours, right?" he asked, looking at Harry over the top of his mug as he took a sip.

Harry nodded and shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."

"Not a good time for insomnia, mate."

Harry didn't respond. He turned restlessly and squinted out the window again.

"Did you know Lupin went back to the werewolves when he left Tonks?" he said abruptly.

Ron slowly lowered his mug. "No. I suppose it makes sense, though. I mean, where else was he going to try to go? But how'd you find out?"

For answer, Harry slid the crumbling journal across the counter to Ron. "Found it when we were sweeping the house a couple days ago. You can't read much, but it was dated September of '97."

Ron silently opened the journal and squinted down at the writing.

"He reckon's Teddy's better off not knowing him," Harry mumbled.

Ron looked up at him, perplexed. "You're not still upset about that, are you? He wasn't even gone six weeks. You managed to knock some sense into him, remember?"

Harry shrugged. "But aren't we doing the same thing? We're taking off… what if our kids don't get to know us?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Harry, you defeated bloody Voldemort for Merlin's sake. You can't think a ragged werewolf pack is going to do us in? What's been up with you, anyway? You've been walking around like you're about to be locked in the dungeons with Filch lately. If this is your new morale-boosting strategy, I can tell you it's not working."

Harry sighed heavily and slid down the cupboard to sit on the floor, elbows resting on his knees. "Do you think it's selfish for me and Ginny to have another kid right now?"

Ron blinked. "What're you talking about?"

Harry chewed his lip. He wanted to tell Ron or Hermione or Molly or _somebody _what Ginny felt about having another baby, to get a little advice from a third party. But that was out of the question. It was too intimate a topic to bring up with anybody else. The two of them were alone in it.

"It's just… I'm gone all the time, Ginny'll be alone with two little kids, and it's not exactly business meetings we're holding out here, is it? Do you think it's selfish to want a big family you can't be around for?"

Ron ran a hand through his hair and pushed himself up to sit on the counter. "A little late to be having second thoughts, now, isn't it?" he asked, looking down at Harry.

"Not second thoughts," Harry mumbled, fiddling with a hole in his sock. "Just… I dunno…."

He trailed off miserably.

"Harry, it's not like we're running away," Ron said quietly. "This is our job. You'd _rather _be at home with Ginny and the kids, wouldn't you? It's different than what Lupin did. And it's not going to be like this forever. We get stuck with a lot of missions now, once we get some seniority, we won't be spending every other bloody week in some shack in the middle of nowhere. You know that.

"Besides," he added. "Ginny's not alone. Hermione and Mum and everyone's still around. The kids'll have each other when they get a little older… too bad none of ours'll be in the same year at school, though."

Ron couldn't seem to get over that disappointment. If they'd just timed it a little better….

He slid back down off the counter and set his empty mug in the sink.

"Don't worry about it," he said bracingly, clapping Harry on the shoulder. "Everything's going to be fine."

Harry nodded. Ron helped pull him to his feet, and he grabbed Lupin's journal off the counter and headed back towards the bedroom to try to get a little more sleep before his shift. He fingered the journal's peeling cover as he climbed the stairs. But that was the thing about doubts… they were catching.

**A/N: So, what's the verdict? :/ If anyone's interested, Teddy's first flying lessons is chapter... seventeen I think of my story called 'Teddy' posted on my cousin's profile, Bookworm1256. It would be a different story that took place in this story if you know what I mean.**

** Next chapter should get some action!** **You probably can guess what that'll be…. **


	6. Deciding

**A/N: I meant to have this up last weekend but scholarships took priority. But now it's here! And thank you so much for the whole four reviewers from the last chapter. I don't know what it is, but one chapter will get twelve reviews and the next four. Maybe it just wasn't interesting enough to elicit comments. Hopefully this one will be better. But seriously, everyone who gives me feedback is absolutely wonderful. You've no idea how much I appreciate it. This chapter is for you! I very much hope you enjoy it!**

Ginny slammed the cupboard door shut so hard it bounced back open. Warm sunlight poured into the kitchen, a sweet summer breeze wafted through the open window, fluttering the curtains, Teddy's and James's laughter came from the back garden, and Ginny was in a towering temper.

"Fine," she snapped, slamming the cupboard door again and holding it closed this time. "Go, then. Take the boys into Hollyhead for the match. I don't care."

"Obviously you do," Harry said cautiously, staying safely out of her way. "Gin, you know Teddy's been looking forward to this for ages. Why don't you come with us, see Jones and the rest? I'm sure they'd love –"

Ginny cut him off with a mirthless snort of laughter. "Oh, yes, that'd be lovely, wouldn't it? Watching the rest of them zoom around on their brand new brooms so I can remember just how huge and sore and clumsy I am while James screams over something or other. I simply _live _for being made to feel like a useless elephant every day, Harry. Why don't you take me to the Hog's Head while we're at it so I can watch you drink Fire Whiskey? Or maybe we could go shopping for a circus tent I could wear as dress robes. Doesn't it all sound like such fun?"

"Ginny," Harry began, feeling like he was attempting – and failing – to navigate his way through a mine field. "What do you want me to do? Tell Teddy we're not going because you can't play on the team this season?"

"Ever, Harry. I am never going to be able to play with the Harpies again because I'll be here, cleaning up after your sons and cooking your dinner and playing housewife until I'm too old to get on a broom anymore."

"Ginny," Harry said indignantly, but she whirled and stalked away from him towards the stove. "If you want to play again, I'm sure you'll be able to in a few years. You're only twenty-four! Besides, it's one afternoon. Surely you can get over it for one afternoon. For the boys' sake."

"Did you know Mum worked in the first-aid room at St. Mungo's before Bill was born?" Ginny demanded, flicking her wand towards some bread and slicing it so forcefully that half the pieces crumbled. "She wanted to be a Healer before she married Dad, but did she ever get back into the program? Not once she started having us."

A buzzer went off from the scullery and Ginny cursed as she dropped the salt shaker. Harry made to go get the laundry, but Ginny stilled him with a look.

"Watch dinner. I'll take care of it. All you manage to do when you try to fold things by magic is get everything turned inside-out."

She disappeared through a door off the kitchen, and Harry moved over to the stove, grinding his teeth in frustration. Everything had been a battle lately. Ginny couldn't apparate herself with the baby, but she hated being side-alonged like a child. She wouldn't go with Harry to pick out a crib on his day off, but at nine o'clock at night she flooed to London saying if they didn't do it now, one of their sons wouldn't have a place to sleep come October. If Harry tried to help by making dinner, she'd already planned on making something else and he was just making things more difficult.

And inevitably they ended up fighting. Granted Harry was not being the most patient or understanding of husbands either. Like when he'd told her just a few minutes ago that she was being selfish by not coming with them.

They at least managed to keep things civil when the children were around, but Harry could tell both Teddy and James were picking up on the tension. A very guilty part of him almost hoped he'd get stuck late at the Ministry every night so that Ginny would be asleep when he got home and they might be able to get through a day without driving each other over the edge. That same guilty part of him sometimes thought that if he'd known what another baby would do to them, he might not have wanted one.

Ginny burst back into the kitchen, hefting a full laundry basket in her arms.

"You can't be carrying that!" Harry told her, trying to take it out of her grip.

"I'm pregnant, not an invalid," she snapped, tugging it away from him.

"At least levitate it, then," Harry pleaded.

"It'll flip going up the stairs and I'll have to dust it off and refold it all three times over," she told him shortly. "It's easier just to carry it."

Harry watched helplessly as she heaved the heavy basket up the stairs.

The back door opened and Teddy came in, holding James under his arm. Harry turned to see his son dripping with mud.

"He got into the flowers," Teddy explained, holding James up to Harry.

James squealed and kicked his mud-encrusted shoes together. Harry took him and carried him over to the sink with a sigh. Teddy followed.

"Are we going to the match today?" he asked, hopping up onto the counter to watch Harry peel James's dirty socks off.

"'Course we are, why wouldn't we?" Harry asked, trying to flash him a grin while James reached up for his glasses as he had taken to doing whenever he was within reach of his father's face.

"Ginny didn't look like she wanted us to go," Teddy shrugged, swinging his feet. "She's been upset a lot lately. I don't want her to be upset with _me_."

"She's not upset with you," Harry assured him. "And just because she doesn't want to go doesn't mean that we can't."

"Good," Teddy said fervently. "'Cause I promised Vicky I'd get her Jones Chocolate Frog Card signed, and she's already told that neighbor girl with the sour face about it."

XxX

Ginny backed through James's bedroom door and heaved the launder basket onto the top of his dresser. Then she pointed her wand at the drawers and the newly folded clothes shot neatly into their place. She sank down onto the edge of the rocking chair and rubbed her back, scowling at the perfect blue sky outside the window.

Her back had been aching all morning, which certainly hadn't improved her mood. She knew it wasn't fair to be upset with Harry for taking Teddy and James to the first Harpies match of the season, but she couldn't help it. She should be _in _that match.

She let her breath out in a loud puff and pushed herself to her feet. Something trickled down her leg. Ginny froze. Slowly, she looked down. The edge of her sock was stained pink. Something reddish-clear was dripping into a puddle at her feet.

XxX

Ginny's sharp cry flew down the stairs like a shot. Harry hardly thought. He swung James our of the sink and set him down on the tiled floor, throwing over his shoulder for Teddy to stay there as he took the stairs two at a time.

She was crouched on James's floor, one arm wrapped around her stomach.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, panicked, dropping to his knees beside her.

Ginny looked up at him, and her eyes were huge. She raised her other hand and Harry saw something red staining her fingers. His heart seemed to stop. A second later she let out a yelp and doubled up, face contorting in pain.

"Something's wrong," she gasped. "Harry, something's wrong! Help me!"

In one fluid motion, he scooped her up off the floor and was across the hall setting her down in their bed in a few swift strides. Ginny curled on her side, both arms cradling her belly. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

Breathing fast and shallow, Harry turned and shot three silver jets into the air, which shot off in different directions, bearing the same message. Then he sank to the floor beside the bed and pressed his lips to Ginny's sweat-beaded forehead.

"It'll be okay, it'll be okay," he whispered over and over again.

XxX

Madam Denin poured potions into an upside-down glass bottle and watched carefully as they started to drip into the petri dish below, turning its contents a dark purple.

"What does that mean?" Harry asked for maybe the twelfth time, but like the other eleven, he got no answer. The mediwitch simply scribbled something on her parchment and moved on to examine the glass vial she'd turned green a few minutes before. A dark blue swirl had formed in the middle of it. Madam Denin waved her wand and the swirl rotated, uncoiling. She scribbled that down, too.

Harry was nearly shaking with frustration and anxiety. Ginny lay quite still on the bed, her eyes drooping from the potions she'd been given, but her grip on Harry's hand was so tight his fingers were going numb. On her other side, Mrs. Weasley stroked her daughter's hair, murmuring soothingly to her.

"What are you testing for?" Harry demanded, eyeing the array of different colored vials and bowls set up at the end of their bed. Madam Denin continued to ignore him. "Dammit, what's going on!"

Mrs. Weasley's hand landed gently on his shoulder, and Harry realized he'd shot to his feet. He carefully perched on the edge of the bed again, squeezing his wife's hand.

Madam Denin gave one last twirl to a silver stir stick in a yellow beaker before she finally looked up at them. Harry swallowed at her expression.

"Ginny and the baby are both out of immediate danger," she told them and Mrs. Weasley let out an audible breath of relief. But the mediwitch looked somber. "But the situation is… precarious," she went on. "The placenta tore partway. I've fixed it for now, but it's extremely delicate. I can't be sure if it will hold, and the baby's in a bad position if it breaks."

She looked grimly between them. Ginny's eyes were open now, staring at Madam Denin.

"There's a lot we need to talk about," Madam Denin said, picking up her parchment and frowning at her own scribbles.

Mrs. Weasley gently slid off the bed. "I'll go down and let the others know how Ginny is," she murmured. She bent down and kissed her daughter's forehead. "I'll be back in a bit, sweetheart." Then she moved around the bed to enfold Harry in a tight hug before slipping out the bedroom door.

Ginny struggled to sit up, but Madam Denin stilled her with a gesture.

"As I said, the situation is very precarious," she said, pulling a chair over to sit beside them. Both Harry and Ginny kept their eyes fixed on her as she took a breath. "Listen. What I've done… it isn't a permanent fix like with broken bones or cuts. It's far more complicated than that and there is a high risk that the placenta will tear completely. And if that happens… it's a dangerous situation for both Ginny and the baby. Especially now. It's far too early for your son to be born. Even with all the help I can give him, his chances are small if he's born now, or even in the next month or two."

She paused to look seriously between them.

"I don't like to spew out numbers, impersonal statistics. There are always people who beat the odds, both good and bad. But from the partial tear, how small the baby is, even for how far along you are… this delivery will be risky."

She paused again and Harry wanted to scream with frustration. What were they going to _do _about it all then?

"What are you getting at?" he finally asked.

"If something were to go wrong and we had to deliver prematurely, the risks to Ginny and her health are also a major concern. There will be very little time for us to act, you see," Madam Denin fingered the edge of her parchment. "There's a likelihood that she will be unable to carry another child… among other risks. And after all of that, there is no guarantee the child will make it. You should take that into consideration as you decide how to proceed."

"Proceed?" Harry asked dumbly.

All he heard were a lot of scary chances. What was there for them to do but pray for luck to be on their side?

Madam Denin hesitated. "It might be less painful for all involved – including the baby – to terminate –"

"Oh," Harry interrupted. He did not want to hear that sentence completed, could not face the decision it implied. He felt dizzy, like the world was spinning, like this had to be just another one of his nightmares.

When it was his life, he did not even have to think about it. But no one should have to choose between their wife and child, between one possibility of life and who knew how many more promises of it.

"No," Ginny said. Her voice was hoarse and quiet, but that hard, blazing look had come into her eyes. "We're not terminating anything. We're going to have this baby and he's going to be wonderful. You'll see…."

She turned her face away. Madam Denin looked more sorrowful than Harry had ever imagined she could. "I will do everything I can to make sure you're right. But Mrs. Potter… Mr. Potter, you should prepare yourselves in case things don't go the way we hope they will."

She stood up, waverying uncertainly for a moment, then, with a wave of her wand, swept her make-shift lab into her black bag. She murmured an apology for not being able to do more and a promise to be back in a little while with a supply of potions and instructions for the coming weeks. Then she left them alone.

Once the door shut behind her, Harry carefully eased himself onto the bed so that he lay beside Ginny, his arm gently encircling her chest. He could feel her carefully controlled breathing, trying not to jostle the baby. They lay nearly perfectly still and silent for a long while. The bright June sunlight was stopped at the window by the thick curtains. Ginny's parents and Ron and Hermione murmured downstairs, and their voices were a comforting hum.

"I want him." Ginny's voice was small and broken, and Harry could feel her trembling. "I want _this _one. I d-don't care what I have to do to get him here, I want _this _one. In October. When he's supposed to come."

Her voice was choked with sobs she was trying with all her might to hold back. Harry carefully pushed himself up on an elbow so he could brush the hair back from her face, press a kiss to her temple. "It'll be okay," he whispered even though it didn't feel like it would.

"But it's my fault," Ginny choked. "I kept wishing he wasn't coming _now _and… and… now –"

"It's not your fault, Gin."

"And I carried that stupid laundry basket up the stairs even though you _told _me –"

"It's _not your fault_."

"But I didn't want him."

Her face was glazed in hot tears. She gasped, trying not to shake. Harry's chest hurt, his own throat ached. He gathered her up – as much of her as he dared to move – and held on tight, and she mumbled into his chest in that broken voice, "I want him. I want him…" like she could fix everything if she said it enough.

Eventually her murmurs faded into shaky breaths, the potions pumping through her system finally took over and pulled her into sleep. Harry raised his chin from the top of her head and leaned back against the headboard.

Very lightly, he ran the tips of his fingers along the top of Ginny's stomach.

"You're mum was never good at waiting either," he murmured, swallowing hard. "But you've got to stay put for a bit longer, okay? Like your mum says, timing is everything."

**A/N: I'm sure, given the math of the epilogue, you all saw something like this coming. But now we've finally gotten to the second half of the story. I hope it goes quickly from here. **

**Now, I'm no expert on medical things, but I did do some research for this, so I hope it's all believable. **

**Also, I forgot to mention this in the last chapter, but if you'd like to one of the nightmares Harry started having after finding Remus's journal, the one right before Ron found him, it's chapter nine in my story 'Snapshots'. I'd intended to put it in this story, but it fit better in the other one. **

**Well, I think that's everything. Please take just a few seconds out of your time to tell me what you thought of this chapter. Your feedback is worth so much to me and I really need to know what your reaction to this was. Thank you so much! **


	7. Calling

**A/N: So I've realized that I'm not going to be able to finish this before Wednesday. I've still got three quite important chapters to write and there is just no way that's happening in four days. My little impromptu trip to Florida a week ago threw me off. I've got so much homework it makes me sick and I want to do the end of this justice for you guys. I want it to be really good, and it wouldn't be on a crunched deadline like this, even if I did have nothing else to do but write. **

**Well, rest assured this story will be finished and hopefully in a timely manner, if not by the deadline. :/ This chapter's a bit short, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. And don't forget to let me know what you think afterwards! Thanks! :) **

Harry knelt in the middle of the bare room and placed his hands on either side of the metal can. He took a deep breath and pried the lid off. The sharp, suffocating scent of paint wafted around him, and he stared into the bright crimson depths of the can, trying not to think of the last time he'd seen so much red. He shuddered and sat back on his heels, looking around the room instead.

It was the smallest in the house, tucked into the furthest corner from his and Ginny's room. James's room was across the hall, Teddy's bedroom when he stayed (which was at least every few weeks) was next door to theirs. The last unoccupied room was across from Teddy and next to James. It was only an extra step down the hall, but when Harry thought about putting their tiny baby in here all by himself, it seemed like a very long way away.

Hot July sunlight streamed through the one, uncurtained window, reflecting brightly off the white walls. From this window, Harry knew, there was a view of the fenced front garden, the flowers lining the winding front walk, a glimpse of the country lane through the trees that offered their home some privacy. It would be a good view to watch for Father Christmas on clear winter nights, to look out for much-anticipated visitors' arrival, to stare at while writing letters to friends during school holidays….

He pulled his gaze away before the images could turn ghostly. That window would have many uses, Harry was determined. He refocused on the paint can. It seemed like a very loud color for a nursery – wasn't there a rule that they had to be all soft pastels? But Ginny had been insistent. Red. It was the color of the valiant, the strong, the fighters.

So he raised his wand, concentrating on the spell Hermione had circled for him in a book of household charms quite a while ago, and made a gesture as though he were throwing a Frisbee in slow-motion. The paint flowed out of the can and hit the walls with a splash. Not quite as controlled as the book made it look, but Hermione had circled a fix for that, too.

It took Harry several tries and more than a little frustration, but eventually he managed to gather all the paint into an even coat along the bottom half of all four walls, leaving the top half bright white to catch the light. There were still some wayward drops on the door and the windowsill, and a stubborn streak that had somehow reached the ceiling, but for the most part Harry was pleased with how he'd managed. Arthur and Bill had helped with the rest of the house when they'd first moved in. But he had been reluctant to ask anyone to assist with this job.

It felt like it was too early to start decorating a room, like they were asking for trouble. It had been a month since the complications. A simultaneously uneventful and nerve-wracking month. Madam Denin visited the house every couple of days, and she said things seemed to be alright for now, but there was always words of caution, lines of worry accompanying the reassurances. An underlying fear that at any moment the almost-boring calm could topple into chaos with lives hanging in the balance.

Preparing a room for a child that might not ever come…Harry felt nervous. But Ginny had asked him to do this. She said they needed to paint it now or it would still be full of paint fumes when the baby came at the beginning of October. So he'd done it, but he wasn't about to broadcast it to the whole family.

He resealed the paint can (which had conveniently refilled itself) and placed it under the window, thoughts churning. Then, with one last look at the newly-colored room, he closed the door and crossed the hall. He knocked softly on the bedroom door and poked his head in.

"It's finished for now," he informed his wife.

Ginny was sprawled on their bed, where she'd been for nearly a month straight, staring up at their ceiling fan.

"One of the blades is half an inch shorter than the rest," she told him, not taking her eyes off the rotating blades. "It goes by fifty-seven times in a minute. Sometimes fifty-eight."

"I think I need to raid Hermione's bookshelf again," Harry said, cautiously lowering himself onto the mattress beside her. She turned slightly glazes eyes on him. "I can now say from experience that I would _really_ rather count ceiling-fan rotations than read any more about Wizarding laws overturned in the convention of 1709."

Harry laughed. "Maybe I'll talk to Fleur instead."

Ginny blanched. "No, French romance novels are definitely worse. Now if you can score some Quidditch stats, that would be gold, Potter."

"I'll do my best."

They sat in silence for a moment, Harry fiddling with the corner of the comforter. He knew Ginny was making a great effort not to be frustrated with her confinement. As if not complaining now might somehow make up for earlier. But, if they were lucky, she still had two months left of this.

At last she broke the silence. "How does it look?"

Harry shrugged. "Red."

She rolled her eyes. "Shoot, I was going for green when I picked it out."

"Well, you missed your mark."

Ginny carefully pushed herself up against the headboard, smirking slightly. "I thought we could put the crib in that corner beside the window. We could put some stars over it. I like the ones George and Angelina put up, the ones that form different constellations. And maybe the boys could make some artwork to put up on the walls. They'd like that. It would keep them busy –"

"Gin," Harry cut across her babbling as gently as he could. She turned her head, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "Don't you… I mean, maybe we should wait a bit before we start putting furniture and stuff in there."

A shadow drew across her face, revealing that blazing determination in her eyes. She went on as though she hadn't heard him.

"And we ought to be thinking about names, too, of course. James has taken to calling him Kitty, but I think he might be teased if we stick with that."

Harry reached for her hand. "Ginny, you know what Madam Denin said about… preparing ourselves…."

She pulled her hand away with a shaky breath. "Our son is coming. He'll sleep in that room you just painted red. He'll play with his brother in the back garden. He'll sign his name on all our Christmas cards. And I'm not going to act as though that won't happen."

She picked up a material book from the bedside table and began to leaf through curtain samples with more force than was strictly necessary. Harry sat on the edge of the bed, not moving or speaking for a while. He had feared that he would not be around for his children. But he had never thought about what it would be like for his children not to be around for him.

"Then… then I've been thinking about something," he said at last, his hand drifting to rest lightly over Ginny's stomach. "A name. What do you think about… about Albus?"

Ginny slowly raised her eyes to meet his. "Albus? After Dumbledore?"

"No, after that other famous Albus we knew," Harry couldn't help but retort, smiling slightly.

"I think he might be better off with Kitty," Ginny said, trying not to sound too put-off. "Albus Potter," she said, testing out the sound. "It just sounds… so _weird_. Albus is an old man, not a baby."

Harry traced the pattern of Ginny's shirt over her stomach with the tip of his finger. "I know it's a bit… er, old-fashioned, but we could call him Al or something, couldn't we?"

Ginny snorted. "Sorry," she said quickly. "It's just I was picturing someone calling Dumbledore 'Al'. Harry, I know you were close to him, but… don't you think that's a lot for a kid to live up to? Would _you _want to be saddled with a name like that?"

Harry shrugged, biting his lip. Ginny scrutinized his expression, suppressing a sigh. "We'll keep it in the running. But what's wrong with something like David or Matthew or Jacob? Or… I thought you might want Remus..."

Harry shook his head at the last suggestion. "No, that's Teddy's if he wants it. Just like Fred was George's. But I was just thinking… I dunno. Dumbledore had the longest life of anyone I know. I figured it might be good luck for this one."

The last part came out as a whisper. Ginny's expression shifted. She trailed her fingers across the top of his hand, biting her cheek.

"Albus," she murmured again, this time imagining a small, dark-haired boy. "Al."

"It means 'light'," Harry offered, shrugging. Even if it was an old man's name… well, wasn't that the point?

Something tiny pushed against the palm of his hand and Harry froze. "Was that –?"

"Yes," Ginny nodded, smiling, rubbing the side of her belly.

A look of faint awe flitted across Harry's face. It was the first time he'd felt this one kicking. Somehow it was hard to believe that the tiny, fragile-looking thing in the sonogram images could exert that much force.

"Maybe he likes the name," Ginny murmured. "Albus. For luck?"

"For luck," Harry nodded, a tentative smile starting. "You're on board with it?"

"I suppose I am," Ginny agreed, shaking her head, although she was smiling, too. "But if he ever complains, I'm pinning it on you."

"Fair enough," Harry grinned, getting up.

"Where are you going?"

"There's something I've got to do, quick, now that we've settled that."

He crossed the hall again and opened the door to the nursery. After surveying the room one more time, he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out. It was a penciled outline of a majestic bird shooting up into the sky, wings spread wide. He'd asked Dean to sketch it for him in the office that morning on a whim.

He summoned the paint can and raised his wand, hoping very much that he could pull this off himself. To his surprise, he got it to work on the first attempt. He stood back, looking at the scarlet phoenix now soaring upwards on the nursery wall. The symbol of eternal life.

These little things that they were doing to comfort themselves – names and symbols – he was well aware that they didn't change very much. But too much already hung on chance. He would do any little bit that might tip the scales in their favor.

**A/N: Yep, pretty short and undramatic, but necessary, I think. What do you think? Your opinions and reactions are always much, much appreciated! And thanks to everyone who has already reviewed! You guys are the best, really you are! You have my eternal gratitude! ;D**


	8. Coming

**A/N: Okay, I did **_**not **_**mean for this to get this long. Clocking in at about 5,400 words, this is the longest chapter yet. It's also the most action-packed. I've never really written a lot of action, so it was a bit of a new experience for me. I hope I didn't go over-board and it keeps you interested. This isn't exactly an action story, so… but anyway, Thanks a million for sticking with me! We've made it to the climax! :D Two chapters left after this. **

On August the twenty-eighth, dawn seeped into a pristinely clear late-summer sky. Golds bled into pinks bled into lavenders bled into pale, pale blue fighting the inky sky. Four people crouched on the crest of a hill dotted with scraggly trees. They stared silently down at the mouth of a cave, trained to keep still and attentive despite the hour and a half of complete inaction. A hundred miles away the same honey-golden light poured in through a second story window of a country house. A woman sat staring out of it, as awake and alert as the men on the hill. She twisted the ring on her left hand, not worrying exactly about her husband – she knew he would come home – but still unable to sleep.

There was something about this dawn – the woman felt it, and so did the ones on the hill – that spoke of a quiet before a storm. Something was coming. One of the men on the hill fidgeted and his superior pinned him with a look that instantly freezes. A whimper came through a glass cone on the bedside and the woman looked over at it, hoping it wouldn't turn into wails. This dawn held a fragile sort of stillness, and none of them could help but think that the moment it broke, there was nothing that could stop the torrent from crashing down on them.

XxX

By ten in the morning, the valley below was flooded with bright, hot daylight. Nothing had happened, but Harry kept his eyes trained on the slim gap in the rock below. It was just an ordinary sentry – or at least it was supposed to be – but there was something about this spot that seemed to say different.

It took five months of scouting trips, but they'd finally narrowed down the new Greyback (that was what they called him because he kept his name under tight raps) and his pack's base to one of two locations. Ron was leading the other sentry group eighty miles to the northwest. They wouldn't be able to communicate even with patronuses. The thing about observation is that it requires silence. A patronus at a bad moment could ruin the whole thing – and Harry wouldn't let that happen again. The enchantments that blocked any communication spells, any apartition were in about a half-mile radius, which also would help keep their quarry from slipping away. So they were on their own.

There were three others with Harry: a girl a couple years older than him called Cynthia Coil, Nigel Mathers, the belligerent newbie who was still dying to bring Shepherd back a prize in the hopes of getting a pat on the head, and Dean Thomas, who'd managed to transfer himself onto this case finally and whom Harry was glad to have at his back. It was a good team… if Mathers would stop twitching. Harry jabbed him in the shoulder and sent him another glare.

"Why don't –"

"Sh!" Harry cut him off with a low, quick hiss. They hadn't seen any sign of life in the five hours they'd been there, but Harry had seen the shimmer of enchantments poorly concealed, and Coil reported prints that might be wolf prints when she did a perimeter check earlier. If there was anyone in there, Harry was sure they had ways of listening to what was going on outside their cave. How else could they have avoided notice this long?

But Mathers didn't seem to perceive the same threat. He shifted over and whispered, "Why don't we just storm the place? Quit wasting our time cornering them and actually _catch _them, or go help the others if they're not really here."

"This isn't a storm mission," Harry breathes back, teeth clenched. "If we see them, we'll go back and get a bigger team, call for back-up, have a plan of action, but we need to know where they are for sure first, and you can only hide so many people in the woods."

Mathers rolls his eyes. "This whole _mission _has been a waste of time under you. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were purposely delaying it. A conflict of interests. Isn't your stepson a werewolf or something?"

Harry would have given a great deal to hex him right there – but not the mission. Instead he gritted his teeth and said in a voice barely audible, "My _godson_ is perfectly normal, and even if he was a werewolf, we're after them because they're criminals. There's no conflict."

"Whatever you say," Mathers muttered. He turned away, but Harry still heard him say out of the corner of his mouth, "But the Weasley girl disappeared during the Easter Holidays before the battle, and as it turned out, she wouldn't have been the only one hiding a baby bump that year."

It was probably a strange stroke of fortune for Mathers that Dean suddenly appeared around a tree, stomping hard on the kid's hand as he made his way over to Harry. As Mathers stifled a yelp, Dean cast him a disgusted look and squatted down next to Harry.

"Looks like he's collecting attitude," he muttered. "Hopefully it gets him kicked out of the office. Anyway, we just caught some movement round back. Could be an animal, could be something else. Coil's checking it out, but I thought you ought to know."

Harry nodded. Dean was already rising to head back to his position. "Red sparks?"

"Red sparks."

XxX

"Muuuuummmmyyyy!"

The little blur darted towards Ginny's legs before she even had time to brace herself against the wall.

"Hi, sweetie," she said, smiling down at her little boy clinging to her dressing gown.

"James! Ginny, dear, what are you doing out of bed?"

Her mother appeared around her son's bedroom door, giving her a disapproving look.

"Mum, I'm allowed to be out of bed for five minutes a day," she said exasperatedly.

"So I guess you aren't planning on showering today, then," Mrs. Weasley said, looking her daughter up and down shrewdly. "Really, dear, I can get you anything you need. That's what I'm here for."

"Mumma!" James demanded, flinging his arms in the air.

No, Ginny thought, looking down at her son's pleading gaze, her mother couldn't bring her anything she needed.

"I'm sorry, baby, Mummy can't lift you," she told James, brushing the top of his head with her fingertips. James only looked up at her with big eyes, waving his hands more fervently.

Mrs. Weasley scooped him up, cooing to him, but James squirmed in her arms. He wanted his mother.

"Go on back to bed, Ginny," her mother told her, gently trying to guide her towards the bedroom. Ginny resisted.

"I just want to peak into the nursery," she said, crossing the hall with careful steps. "Have you seen it? Harry did a good job with the paint. He put the furniture in last night. I want to see how it all looks put together."

Mrs. Weasley looked anxious, but she followed her daughter over to the nursery. Ginny cracked the door. Mrs. Weasley gasped softly. In the late-afternoon sunlight, the room seemed to glow scarlet and gold. The basinet James had used was tucked in the corner by the window, a mobile of brightly-colored birds flapped their wooden wings with soft clicks, a small zoo of stuffed animals sat on the top of a bookshelf stacked with brightly colored picture books - mostly Teddy's old ones - and golden lions circled a wide, round rug, loping and ambling around the big orange sun in the middle of it.

Ginny smiled broadly. "It's perfect, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear, it's lovely," her mother agreed, carrying James farther into the room to show him the scarlet phoenix soaring upward on the far wall.

Ginny leaned against the wall, rubbing her back. Her clock was ticking, and she knew she ought to be getting back to bed, but this room was so lovely she hardly wanted to leave it. Just a bit longer…. She slid down the wall to rest on the floor.

"Come on," said Mrs. Weasley, noticing. "We'd better be getting you off your feet."

She set James down in the middle of the rug where he immediately began spinning in circles, watching the lions amble around and squealing "Ly! Ly!"

Ginny was reluctant, but her mother had the no-arguments face she remembered from her childhood of sneaking out of bed when she wasn't supposed to be. Ginny took her mother's hands and let herself be pulled to her feet.

And for the second time that summer, something wet poured down her leg and pooled on the floor.

XxX

The red sparks came just as the sun was starting to slip down in the sky. Harry was up and running in a second, Mathers right behind them. They circled the valley, sliding down the hill and trying not to run into trees as their momentum stopped them from turning very well. Red sparks were only protocol if they were spotted. A last resort.

Harry rounded the rock formation to see Dean and Coil scrambling up the hill from where they must have been lying low in the tall grasses, trying to get a closer look. Two shadowy figures hunched in the rocks at the bottom of the valley, but they weren't giving chase as Harry had expected. Half-way up the hill, Dean and Coil seemed to notice this, too. They slowed, looking uncertainly over their shoulders. A third crouching figure had joined the first two.

"What're they doing?" Mathers asked as he and Harry caught up with the other two.

"I don't know," Coil said tensely.

They were only about a hundred feet away. The people on the rocks were in shadow, but even so, Harry could identify them as the werewolves they'd been tracking. The ragged clothes and matted hair coupled with that feral look was more than enough. But they just sat on their haunches and watched the four Aurors. It made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand on end.

"What do we do?" Dean asked, looking at Harry.

"We need backup." Even as he said it, he knew he wouldn't be able to follow the plan. The plan involved the element of surprise, which they no longer had. Getting help meant running half a mile, turning their backs on the pack, which gave the werewolves time to run – obviously not an option. But he didn't expect them to keep sitting there and staring for long.

"Mathers, head for the enchantments – get a message to Ron and the rest," Harry ordered, making up his mind. Coil was the fastest, but Mathers was the least experienced in combat. Having only three of them against a pack of at least seven already left them at distinctly uneven odds. They needed the best.

But Mathers was not about to run away from a fight. "No way," he hissed. "We're not putting this off. In two minutes they could be spread halfway through the woods. If we attack now, at least they're all still in one place. We'll have an edge."

"That's what you think," Dean shot back. "But how do we know a couple of them didn't slip out?"

"Shift's up in a half-hour," Mathers insisted. "The new sentries come in then, we'll have back up anyway. If we go for it now, we can corner them."

Harry looked from the crouching werewolves toward the distant borderline, quickly weighing their options. If they didn't act soon, the pack would make a run for it. Sending for help might mean losing an opportunity, but staging an attack with only four on seven was riskier than he liked to be.

One of the werewolves disappeared, slipping into a fisher in the rocks. The other two still watched silently, almost hungrily.

Mathers lost patience. "We haven't got time for this!" He whirled and began charging down the hill. Dean made a grab for him, but he was already gone. Harry swore after him. The two werewolves crouched on the rocks half rose.

But Mathers hadn't even reached the bottom of the hill when a loud snap cut the air, and he went down. One of the werewolves leapt forward, but Harry blasted him back with an impediment jinx, already barreling down the hill to where Mathers was howling in pain.

"Bloody hell," Dean exclaimed, skidding to a stop several feet short of Mathers. Coil made a choking sound. The iron jaws of a giant bear trap were slowly turning visible once more, and Mathers' bloody calf was between them. Coil quickly made a sweep of the area as Dean pried the trap open, Harry keeping his wand trained on the two werewolves pacing the rocks, watching them all the while with those hungry eyes.

"There're three more just around here," Coil reported, moving her wand back to the werewolves.

"There must be something on those traps," Dean said, examining Mathers' mangled leg in consternation. "Basic healing spells don't work. Probably a curse or a potion, but that means he can't fight."

Harry swore again. "That's what you get for running headlong into something you're not prepared for." He took a deep breath and looked to where shadowy figures were emerging from the rocks. And it dawned on him why the three they'd seen hadn't attacked. He whipped around and sure enough five more dirty, savage-looking people were emerging from the scraggly shrubbery. They'd been expecting them, must have known they were being tailed. This was an ambush.

XxX

"It's too early!" Ginny cried, sweat beading her face. She clutched her mother's hand so tightly, her fingers were white.

"I know it, dear, but there's nothing we can do now but let him come," Mrs. Weasley tried to sooth. She looked desperately towards Madam Denin at the foot of the bed.

"No, you have to keep him in!" Ginny gasped, squeezing her eyes shut as a contraction seized her. "He's too little. You have to find a way to keep him in!"

"We can't, it would kill him," Madam Denin told her grimly. "The placenta is torn completely, he won't be getting any oxygen."

A stronger contraction racked her and Ginny let out a muffled scream of pain, sitting forward.

"Don't push yet," Madam Denin warned her. She was pale, and as she turned to grab something off the table behind her, Mrs. Weasley saw that her gloves were covered in scarlet.

"Harry," Ginny moaned, sagging back against her pillow and turning desperate eyes on her mother. "You've got to get him. He's got to be here. I _need _him here. It's too early…"

"Hermione's working on it," Mrs. Weasley promised, dabbing Ginny's brow with a cool cloth. "He'll be here sweetheart, don't worry."

XxX

Harry dove out of the way as a nasty-looking purple curse zigzagged toward him. Only about half of the werewolves had wands, but that wasn't handicapping them very much. The others simply leapt, snarling and clawing with long, yellow fingernails and teeth that had been filed by magic into points. They might not be transformed, but that hardly made them less dangerous. Bill still bore the marks of Greayback's mauling. And these creatures were not being provided with a steady diet by the Death Eaters. They seemed half-starved and desperate.

Harry's shoulder was seeping blood from where he'd smashed into a rock. Dean had a gash on his cheek, from a curse or a claw Harry didn't know, and his lip was bleeding. Coil was limping, but she was still on her feet, trying to lead a couple of the more wild, wandless werewolves toward one of their own bear traps. Harry and Dean were trying to cover Mathers. He was still firing spells from where he was crumpled on the ground, but he couldn't move and a dark pool was spreading around his leg, despite the jacket Coil had bound around his shin.

Two of the seven werewolves were stunned, one a wand-carrier, one not, but that still left them badly outnumbered. A searing orange light – a spell Harry had never seen before – shot past his elbow. The aim was off, and he'd managed to dodge it, but the curse radiated a circle of heat he hadn't reckoned on. It took Dean's cry for Harry to realize his sleeve was on fire and while he was distracted putting it out, something struck him hard in the back and he flew forward into the earth, his glasses cracking beneath him.

Things were not going well for them.

XxX

The Auror department quickly learned why Hermione Granger-Weasley had been among the teenagers who had led the Battle of Hogwarts. Aiden Erikson might strut around flexing his biceps and bragging about his scars, but he cowered under Hermione's flashing eyes.

"I don't bloody care if it's confidential, Erikson," she barked in the fierce voice dealing with countless criminal hearings had honed in her. "I need to know where Harry Potter is and how to get a hold of him. This is an emergency, and I'll go straight through Kingsley Shacklebolt if I have to!"

"Weasley!" Hermione whirled to see Elanor Shepherd clacking toward her in those spiky black heels. She regarded Hermione with a hard expression. "What seems to be the problem here?"

"She wants confidential information on a top level case!" Aiden Erikson exclaimed, flinging up his hands angrily. "She's not even part of the office!"

"Ms. Shepherd," Hermione said, turning her blazing eyes on the imperious head of the Auror office. "All I need is Harry. It's an emergency. His wife's in premature labor."

"Look, I'm sorry, but not even _we _know exactly where to find him," Erikson said from behind her. "Potter and your husband are the only ones that have the exact coordinates, that's how high up this case is, and they're out of range. No contact."

"How much trouble would I be in if I sent a patronus?" Hermione asked, already raising her wand. Erikson flinched involuntarily.

"It won't work," Shepherd told her, shaking her head. "They've blocked them so as not to jeopardize their position."

"You're just going to have to wait until they get back," Erikson told her for the fifth time, trying not to smirk because he finally had the Head to back him up.

Shepherd appraised Hermione with a shrewd eye. "Erikson, you know the general location. Take Freely and get a lock on Potter. Tell him what's going on and take his place. He's got somewhere else he needs to be."

Aiden Erikson gaped at her.

"Now!" Shpherd barked and he jumped in his desk chair and hurriedly began looking for the maps of the area.

Hermione mouthed a silent thank-you to Elenor Shepherd who merely nodded curtly and marched away.

Erikson was fumbling with a map and Hermione was watching impatiently when a voice across the high-ceilinged cubicle room called, "Hey!"

She turned to see Ron striding toward her, red hair standing out in the muted colors of the room. He looked surprised to see her. "What're you doing here? You don't work today, do you? Hey, what's wrong?"

He had gotten close enough to read the distress in her face and tried to wrap a comforting arm around her, but she was already in warpath mode, bent on accomplishing her mission before anything else.

"Do you know where Harry is?" she demanded.

"Yeah. He should be back here any minute," Ron said, glancing toward Harry's dark cubicle a row over. "Why? What's going on?"

"Ginny's having the baby."

"What? But it's not supposed to come until October!"

"Well apparently it missed the memo," Hermoine snapped, immediately feeling bad at the look on Ron's face. "Look, I'm sorry. But Harry really needs to be there right now."

"Um, do I still have to go look for him?" Erikson piped up from his desk behind them.

Ron barely spared him a glance. "He'll be here soon," he told Hermione. "His shift's over by now. He'll be here soon."

Hermione bit her lip. "I just hope it's soon enough."

XxX

The avalanche turned the tables. Mathers had passed out, Harry had lost sight of Coil, and one of the stunned werewolves had regained consciousness and seemed determined to take revenge in the form of blood. Harry and Dean were backed into each other, barely fending off two attackers each. And what was more worrying, Harry had not yet seen the leader they were looking for. None of the seven werewolves attacking them was Greyback's successor, which meant there were probably more – at least one more – somewhere close by.

Then the rock formation had started to shake. At first Harry thought it was a wayward spell bouncing off the stone. But then a grinding rumble started. Pebbles began raining down on them like hale. For an instant, the fighting froze. Then two of the werewolves bolted, making a mad dash for the trees. A boulder tumbled off the top and Harry had to hurl himself out of its path. The other werewolves were quickly backing away. They both had wands, but neither seemed to know how to stop the collapse. After a few steps they turned and followed their buddies, scrambling up the hill on all fours.

Another two small boulders smashed down close to them. Harry and Dean picked up Mathers and ran for the crest of the hill. They didn't need to make it all the way, just out of range of the plummeting rock. A stone the size of a bludger caught Harry on his bad shoulder and he stumbled, but he kept running. There was a crash that seemed to shake the whole valley and debris flew at their backs. Dean stumbled this time, plowing into the ground, but they were more than half-way up the hill again, out of the path of the rock-fall.

"Are you okay?" Harry gasped, coughing from the dust.

Dean nodded, massaging his knee. Blood still dripped from his lip. He had some new scrapes, but he seemed all in one piece. Together they turned to look at the valley. The rock pile covered the entire floor of the bowl; massive chunks had gouged trenches a foot deep into the earth in places.

"Coil – Cynthia –" Harry said, staggering to his feet.

Dean grabbed his elbow, wordlessly shaking his head. If she was still down there, they didn't want to find her now.

For a moment they gaped at the destruction. Then something moved behind a rock. Reflexively, Harry fired a stunner down at the shadowy figure, but it deflected. And then Cynthia Coil pulled herself up over a half-crumbled edge of rock on the far side of the valley. Her long braid was mostly out, she was limping worse than ever, and her robes were slashed nearly to shreds in places, but she was quite obviously alive. Dean let out a strangled whoop.

Coil picked her way across the smashed stone. Harry met her at the base of the hill and helped her up the rest of the way.

"It was my fault," she told them, grimacing as she examined her swollen ankle. "Those two had me on the other side of the rocks, and all I could think to do was collapse the ledge over them. It worked, too. They're pinned good, even if it didn't kill them. And since we haven't seen their leader, I'm hoping he was in there." She waved towards the collapsed cave. "Sorry. Didn't mean to nearly get you crushed."

"Not a problem," Dean assured her fervently.

But Harry was staring in the direction the werewolves had fled. In half a mile they could apparate. Of course, they didn't know that… or did they? They'd known they were being tracked. Either way, in half a mile they would be out of reach again. So Harry made an impulsive decision that Mathers would have loved if he were conscious.

"C'mon," he told Dean and Coil, starting to fight his way up the rest of the hill. "If you can walk, come on. Disallusion Mathers, we can't take him with us."

"You mean we're giving chase?" Dean asked incredulous, scrambling to catch up with Harry.

"Second shift should be here soon," Coil added, although she was already waving her wand over Mathers, hiding him as best she could.

"Not soon enough," Harry grunted. "We're finishing this today."

He was battered and exhausted, but Harry was not letting this drag out any longer. He couldn't do this no-contact thing anymore, not so close to the baby coming. This had to end today.

XxX

Hermione waited on the edge of the apparition point, a wide, empty platform at the back of the cubicle room. Two guards stood at either end of it. It was supposed to be exclusively for Aurors on missions, prevent unwanted tag-alongs and prevent them from having to wonder through the ministry bloody and bruised, but if anybody wanted to attack the Auror office, it was also a direct route.

Harry wasn't back yet. The group of four that was supposed to take his place had arrived ten minutes ago, but without him here to lead them to the right place, Ron had had to do it. Now she was waiting for him to come back. Maybe Harry had just lost track of time. But the instant Ron reappeared on the platform, she knew that wasn't the case.

XxX

Ginny whimpered. She was beyond screaming or swearing. She wanted to curl on her side and cry, but she couldn't move.

"You're almost ready to push," Madam Denin told her.

"Where's Harry?" It was all she'd said for the past… she didn't even know how long. Everything was blurring together. All she knew was that it hurt and it was too early and her husband was not holding her hand.

"He's –"

But before her mother could repeat the answer she's been giving over and over again, the bedroom door cracked open. Ginny couldn't see who it was, but a moment later her mother pressed her lips to Ginny's temple and promised she'd be right back. Ginny wanted to cry, "don't leave me alone!" but she couldn't find her voice.

"You're doing great, Ginny," Madam Denin assured her from near her feet.

But Ginny didn't feel like she was doing great. She felt like she was losing ground with every breath.

XxX

Downstairs, James was wailing. Arthur held him in the rocking chair, but he wasn't quieting for anything.

"How's she doing?" he asked the moment he saw his wife.

Mrs. Weasley was pale and drawn. "She's holding her own." She didn't want to tell Arthur about all the blood, or about the fact that the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen. "Where's Harry?" she asked instead.

Hermione took a breath. "We don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Mrs. Weasley demanded, eyes widening.

"He was working a top-level case, no-contact, but his shift should have ended half an hour ago. Ron took the next group in, but… but..."

"But what?" Mr. Weasley prompted, bouncing James a little to try to calm him down.

"It looks like there was a battle," Hermione went on, twisting her hands together anxiously. "They found one of Harry's group hurt pretty bad, but the rest of them weren't there. Ron's leading a search."

Mrs. Weasley sank into a chair and put her face in her hands. Mr. Weasley stared at Hermione open-mouthed. James cried all the louder.

"Of all the times this could have happened," Mrs. Weasley murmured into her fingers.

Hermione reached out to take her nephew so that Mr. Weasley could comfort his wife. She tried not to think about the fact that James was the only member of his family whose safety was guaranteed at the moment.

XxX

Even limping, Coil was a fast runner. They caught up with the four fleeing werewolves about fifty feet from the enchantment barrier. Dean took one down with a body-bind curse, and Harry stunned a second before they even knew what was happening. One of the wandless made a snarling leap at Coil, but she knocked him out of the air before he'd even gotten close. The fourth one fired a hex at Harry, but it missed, taking a large chunk out of a tree a foot to his right. Harry lazily flicked his wand and the fourth werewolf's wand flew out of his hand and lost itself in the undergrowth.

They obviously hadn't expected to be chased. In a matter of minutes, Harry, Dean, and Coil had all four bound together.

Harry took a great breath, still reeling from the chase and ready to be done.

"C'mon, let's get them to the Ministry," he said, preparing to drag them across the enchantment line.

But then a silver jet of light burst through the bushes to his left. Harry only caught it out of the corner of his eye, and before he could even turn his head, something ice-cold and sharp had sliced across his left side.

Black spots popped in front of his eyes, and he choked, stumbling. Dean caught him as another flash of silver shot towards Coil. But she threw herself out of the way and started firing back at the clump of bushes. Using Dean's shoulder to steady himself, Harry straightened up. He didn't want to look down and see what that curse had done.

"Stay here," Dean told him, leaping forward to help Coil.

Under the barrage of two attackers, the bushes rustled, and a bone-thin man with a scraggly beard and yellow eyes jumped out. It was Greyback's successor. He hadn't been caught in the avalanche after all, and now he had the dangerous and desperate look of a cornered animal. He sent Dean flying back into a tree with a jerk of his wand and then launched himself at Coil. She raised her wand, but this time she wasn't fast enough. He was on top of her before she could utter a spell, and he ripped the wand out of her hand and tossed it aside.

"Stupify!" Harry gasped, stumbling forward.

The werewolf instantly went limp. Coil shoved him off of her with disgust.

"Thanks," she panted to Harry.

"No problem," he mumbled, knees hitting the ground. His vision was blurring worse than ever. It hurt to breathe. But it was over. Finally, it was done.

XxX

"He's coming," Madam Denin announced, getting into position. "It'll all be over in a few minutes, Ginny. Just hang in there."

Ginny could barely hear her. The door opened and someone knelt by her side, took her hand.

"Harry?"

But she knew it wasn't from the hand, too wrinkled and soft to be his.

"No, dear, it's me," Mrs. Weasley said softly.

"Where is he?"

There was a pause, and Ginny knew everything from that pause. "He's coming."

"He better be," she whispered.

XxX

Dean was winding bandages around Harry's torso when the reinforcements arrived. Coil had trussed the lead werewolf up with the others and was now interrogating one of the others who had come around and was still groggy. Ron burst out of the trees first, followed by five other Aurors who aimed their wands at the werewolves before realizing they were already subdued.

"Nice of you to show up!" Dean called.

"What happened!" Ron demanded, making a bee-line for where Harry sat on a stump, gritting his teeth as Dean tightened the bandages. He started to explain, but Ron quickly interrupted, eyes widening at the scarlet staining Harry's left side. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Harry assured him. "Shepherd'll probably want some mediwizards to look me over, but it's nothing."

"Right, just a scratch," Dean snorted, rolling his eyes.

Ron scrutinized him a second longer, then reached out and clapped him on the shoulder in a gesture Harry understood to mean he was incredibly relieved to find him in one piece. Then he turned to a couple of the Aurors he'd brought with him.

"Freely, get the story from Thomas. You're in charge now." He turned back to Harry and his expression had changed from calm and in-control to something Harry couldn't quite place, but which made his stomach turn to lead. "We've gotta get back. Here, I'll side-along you."

He pulled Harry to his feet.

"Ron, what's going on?"

"Ginny's having the baby," he said quietly.

A roaring seemed to start up in Harry's ears. "But it's too early..." he said faintly.

It seemed like a stupid thing to say. They'd known the risk was high for premature delivery, but with each passing week, Madam Denin had seemed more confident that Ginny would carry to full term. That was still nearly six weeks away.

"I know," Ron was telling him, getting a firm grip on his arm. "But it's coming now. We've gotta get you patched up so you can get home."

"No," Harry said numbly.

"What?"

"No, I don't need to be patched up. Take me straight home."

"But you're still bleeding!"

"Not much. Ron, _please_."

Ron hesitated, then nodded. As he pulled Harry into the suffocating darkness, all Harry could think was _I'm coming_.

**A/N: There you have it. I hope it didn't drag…. Don't know when the next chapter will come out, but I'll shoot for next weekend. It would be kind of cruel to leave a long gap at such an intense moment. Please review! **


	9. Crying

**A/N: And here we go with part two of Albus Severus Potter's arrival in the world! Not as long as last chapter, thank goodness. Oh, and guess what? This story got second place in Eirinn Croi's competitions! Really awesome, considering it wasn't finished for the deadline! Thanks you guys for offering encouragement in all your reviews and everything! You really helped me get here! Okay, now for the chapter….**

Hermione paced the living room. Her excuse was James, who had his face pressed into her shoulder, maintaining a constant, tired howling, snot and tears dampening her robes. But Hermione couldn't have kept still anyway. A knot of sickening anxiety burned in her stomach for her sister-in-law upstairs, for her missing best friend, and for the tiny nephew she hadn't even met yet. Mrs. Weasley had gone back upstairs. Mr. Weasley sat numbly in the rocking chair by the fire. And aside from James's howling, the house seemed far too quiet.

Ginny's brothers all knew what was happening by now – except for Charlie, of course, but he would probably know soon. They had wanted to come, but Arthur told them not to. There wasn't enough room, and there was enough tension in the air as it was. He'd promised to send word, though, as soon as anything happened. So far, nothing had happened. But very soon that would change.

The front door burst open. Mr. Weasley leapt to his feet, Hermione let out a muffled cry, and James shrieked as his aunt flew across the room with him.

"_Harry!_" she caught him in a hug as he stumbled across the threshold, Ron half a step behind him. "What _happened?_ Are you okay?"

She stepped away, wide eyes taking in his battered, bloodstained appearance with obvious concern. Harry came away with James – who had been inconsolable for so long – clinging to his chest, his cries finally subdued to little whimpers.

"Later," Ron said to Hermione. "How's Ginny?"

Hermione and Arthur both looked up the stairs, and Harry followed their gazes. "They haven't told us much," Mr. Weasley said quietly, nervously.

"I've got to…." Harry murmured, staring up at his closed bedroom door, but he didn't move, just held James tighter in his arms.

Hermione gently took James back, and Ron guided Harry toward the stairs. The moment his father let him go, James began to cry again, cry as if the world were ending, wriggling so much in Hermione's grip, she could barely hold him. Harry turned, feeling his son's anguish like a fresh blow to the gut. He took one of James's hands and bent to kiss the top of his head.

Then he turned and James's sobs chased him as he charged up the stairs.

XxX

"Alright, Ginny, it's time," Madam Denin told her.

"No it's not," Ginny moaned, but she braced herself anyway, waiting for the count of three. That was when they heard the footsteps pounding up the stairs, and Harry flung open the bedroom door and skidded in, sweaty and ashen-faced and covered in cuts and scrapes and blood, chest heaving.

"What's…." he gasped, eyes flying around the room, taking everything in.

"Harry, what on Earth – are you –" Mrs. Weasley started to hurry toward him, taking in his appearance with more than mild alarm. But he went straight for Ginny, falling to his knees beside the bed. Sweat beaded her white face. Her eyes found his and he could see all his fear mirrored there. His hand slipped into hers.

The next few minutes blurred. Ginny barely made a sound, but her grip on his fingers was like iron. Harry's hear raced. Nothing, nothing save for the Battle of Hogwarts, maybe, had wound anxiety and fear so tautly in him. Nothing seemed to exist – ever had – but that dimly lit room and Ginny and the baby trying to make his way into the world.

"I can see his head," Madam Denin murmured. Murmured. When James was born, that milestone had been declared with excitement. The energy buzzing in the room when James was born was jubilation, not something close to dread.

Ginny's face was contorted with pain. Tears were leaking out of her eyes, but she didn't stop.

"Nearly there, sweetheart," Mrs. Weasley breathed.

The sun was sinking below the horizon, taking its golden daylight with it. Light was fading fast. Madam Denin lit her wand, but none of them could step outside of the intensity long enough to light a lamp.

"Molly, I'm going to need you to help me," Madam Denin said in a low, tense whisper. Ginny wouldn't hear it, but Harry caught it, and the next part made him go cold. "Once the baby's out, she's going to bleed a lot. We'll give her some blood –replenishing, but I need you to try to staunch it with this spell."

She demonstrated quickly with one hand. Mrs. Weasley nodded, mimicking the movement a few times. Her hand shook at first, but it didn't take long to steady it.

"He's nearly here," Madam Denin told them. "Nearly. You're doing great, Ginny. Thank Merlin he's the right way up. Alright, ready?" She looked at Mrs. Weasley, getting ready.

Ginny squeezed Harry's hand tighter; adrenalin pounded through his veins far more furiously than it had only an hour ago in the midst of a fight. But there was nothing for him to do now but wait. Every fiber of his being wanted to do something, but all he could do was wait.

Ginny let out a muffled scream. And then Madam Denin was holding something very small and slick. Harry half-rose. The two women moved quickly, tying, cutting, waving their wands. Then Madam Denin straightened up, the little bundle in her arms. There was scarlet everywhere. So much red.

Ginny sagged against her pillows, eyes fluttering closed.

"Ginny?" Harry said, eyes snapping from the little thing Madam Denin was carefully laying on her table to his wife. "Ginny?" His voice was cracking madly. Her breath was fast and shallow, her grip lessening. He put his other hand on her cheek. Her eyes opened.

"Is he…?"

"I don't know."

"Why can't I hear him?"

And for the first time, Harry realized how quiet it was. How very quiet.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Ginny fought to sit up, craning her neck. "Why can't I hear him?" she repeated, hysteria creeping into her voice. Her grip redoubled on his fingers.

Harry stood fully, squeezing her hand back. Madam Denin was bent over the table.

Mrs. Weasley appeared at Ginny's other side, holding a goblet. "You need to drink this, Ginny."

But Ginny pushed it away. "Why can't I hear my baby!"

Mrs. Weasley hesitated, looked over her shoulder toward Madam Denin, then set down the goblet Ginny was obviously not going to drink at the moment, and moved swiftly over to the table. Madam Denin moved slightly, and for the first time Harry got a clear shot at the baby – at _their _baby. He was tiny, so small it was hard to believe he was real. And he wasn't the right color.

All the air seemed to disappear out of the room as his vision narrowed in on that one little creature. Madam Denin waved her wand, pushed her fingers against his fragile chest.

"Harry, our baby….our baby…. Albus," Ginny was gasping at his side, but Harry barely heard her. A mantra had started in his head, and all he could think was too still, too small, too silent. Too still, too small, too silent.

He was blue. Turning blue.

_Too still, too small, too silent_.

Ginny was sobbing now. His own breathing was ragged.

_Too still, too small, too silent_.

Limp as a ragdoll. They were too late, too early.

"Albus…." He didn't know who said it, whispered it, screamed it, he couldn't tell.

The last rays of the sun were fading through the gap in the curtains.

And then… the tiny chest rose, the little mouth pulled opened, and a thin, wavering cry rose, shot straight up to the heavens and bounced off the first evening stars, and it was one of the three best sounds Harry would ever hear.

But it wasn't over yet. That noise – that paper-thin cry – seemed to take everything that tiny body had in it. It faltered and faded and there was another horrible moment of quiet before the thin chest rose again. Every breath was a fight.

Madam Denin and Mrs. Weasley were both bent over him. Harry couldn't tell what they were doing, but a moment later a small, plastic mask full of some pinkish gas was over the baby's mouth and nose, he was being wrapped in a thin blanket, patches stuck to his chest, forehead, stomach.

And then abruptly the swift, hurried motion seemed to slow. Mrs. Weasley and Madam Denin straightened up, looking down at the baby. Ginny's breath caught, Harry took half a step forward, trying to see, trying not to see.

"Mum?" Ginny asked in a squeak.

"Is he…" Harry trailed away, his voice so hoarse he didn't know if anyone had even heard.

Madam Denin turned to them, and the moment before she spoke seemed to stretch on forever. Then –

"He's breathing." And there was relief in her voice behind all the weariness and anxiety, there was relief there.

It wasn't "He's okay." It wasn't even "He's going to be okay." But it was still a promise of life.

Harry collapsed on the edge of the bed, wrapped his arms around Ginny's shaking shoulders.

"He's breathing," she repeated, voice muffled by his robes.

Then she pulled away, looking at Harry properly for the first time.

"You're covered in blood!" she said as if noticing for the first time. "Why do you look as though you've been subbing as a chimera's plaything?"

Harry let out a shaky laugh. Maybe the whirlwind of adrenalin was finally starting to make him crack up.

Ginny turned to her mother. "Why is he covered in blood?"

Mrs. Weasley started to say, "I don't –" but a small, muffled noise from the folds of the blanket snapped all their attention back onto the baby. Madam Denin adjusted the fabric around him, then she pulled up the sides of her table so that it looked more like one of those muggle incubators with see-through walls.

"Here, do you want to see him?" she offered, rolling the make-shift cradle slowly around the edge of the bed. "He's a fighter," she told them in a hushed voice, glancing down at the undulating lines of her chart. "Everything considered, he seems to be doing well for now. The mask's to help him breathe. His lungs aren't quite strong enough yet. We're watching heart rate and brain activity. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial, and it's not even over after that, but right now we've got him warm and breathing with just a little help, and that's a good sign."

She rolled the baby right up to the side of the bed so that they could both lean over him. Hesitantly, Ginny reached out and brushed her pinky against the soft arc of his forehead. He looked small enough to nestle in Harry's hands.

"Has he got a name?" Mrs. Weasley breathed, gazing at her grandson from the foot of the bed.

"Albus…" Ginny murmured.

Harry squeezed her shoulders, a silent thank-you. He had to swallow hard.

Albus's tiny, wrinkled eyelids fluttered, cracked open, and for the first time they saw the edge of emerald green beneath them.

XxXxX

It was late in the night when Harry woke. Mrs. Weasley had descended upon him the moment Ginny had taken all her required potions and dropped off into a deep sleep. It took him a moment to clear the residual fuzziness from all the spells and potions she'd used on him to patch him up. Madam Denin had had a look at the gash in his side, but told him with a grimace that there wasn't much more she could do.

Harry lay quite still for a long moment, breathing slowly and as deeply as he could with bandages wound tightly around his stomach. It didn't hurt much anymore, but he was pretty sure that was from the numbing spell. He looked over at Ginny. The moonlight made her look pale as marble, but he could see a faint blush in her cheeks underneath it, hear her steady breathing. It must have been a long time since she'd rested so completely and undisturbed.

He kissed her cheek lightly before he slid out of bed.

The first few steps were unsteady. He suspected Mrs. Weasley had slipped him a diluted potion for dreamless sleep among all the other remedies. But by the time he reached the hall, his balance was back. Out of habit, he went to James's door and looked in to make sure all was well. Hermione must have tucked him in. A copy of _The Tales of Beetle the Bard_ still lay open on the dresser.

Molly and Arthur were probably sleeping in Teddy's empty bedroom, but a soft light pooled under the door to the nursery. Quietly, Harry pushed it open and slipped inside.

Albus slept swaddled in his blanket in the basinet, the wooden birds turning in slow circles above his head. Madam Denin was asleep on a cot a few feet away, her charts and bag in a small heap at the foot of it. It was the charts that glowed, tracing Albus's heartbeat, each breath he drew. Harry paused to look down at these, but he couldn't make heads or tails of them. He moved on to the basinet.

Something rushed inside of him as he looked down at his son. It was a lot like what he'd felt when James was born, but wilder somehow. Less ecstasy, more… desperation, hope, fear for his baby's life. He wondered suddenly if this was what his parents had felt when they'd learned about the prophecy.

Harry didn't know how long he stood there counting breaths as Albus's chest rose and fell, but eventually Madam Denin stirred on the cot behind him. She got up to join him at the basinet, reaching in to adjust the breathing mask.

"How is he?" Harry asked softly.

"Hanging in there pretty well," she told him. "He's eaten a little, slept mostly. He's got apnea because he's so little, so once in a while he'll stop breathing. As long as we keep a close eye on him, he'll be okay," she assured him, noticing Harry's alarmed look. "If he stops breathing, an alarm will go off. All you've got to do is press the sole of his foot or rub his arms a bit, remind him to keep breathing. There's a chance for heart problems and infections, but so far, he's looking good. A little small, even for a preemie. Just under four pounds. But he's strong. Do you want to hold him?"

"Can I?" Harry asked, taken aback. Albus looked so fragile he was afraid to move him.

Madam Denin smiled in faint amusement. "Of course you can."

She bent over the basinet and carefully lifted the baby out of it, placing him in Harry's arms and stepping back. Harry backed slowly into the rocking chair and sank into it, scarcely breathing. The rest of the world seemed to fall away as he cradled his newborn son, here at last in his arms. He had thought that once the baby was here, once he could see him and hold him, he would feel less helpless to keep him safe. But he didn't. If anything, Albus's feather-light weight against his chest made it worse, made him feel like the slightest breath of wind might snatch him away.

But the longer he sat there feeling the baby's little stirring, seeing each breath, the more it dawned on him: the hardest part was over. It might not all be over, but their son had made it into the world. He was here, and Ginny was okay, and whatever came next couldn't be as hard as those first few minutes after Albus was born, when Harry had learned what it was like to see a life that hadn't come yet flash before his eyes.

Whatever was rushing inside him seemed to pick up energy, and Harry was glad when Madam Denin slipped out of the room with the excuse of checking up on Ginny. All the fear, tension, joy, and relief of the last day, last several months crashed down on him there, with Albus's little body nestled against his chest, and hot tears sprang to his eyes, spilled over down his cheeks. He pressed his lips together and cried silently in the darkness, gently rocking the baby.

**A/N: So what'd you think? A couple things I wanna mention. First, I know most kids are born with blue eyes that change color when they get a little older, but my mom says my eyes never changed. I don't have green eyes, though, so maybe it's different, but for the sake of the story, Al was born with green eyes. It's a little bit important for how he got his middle name, I think. Which I hope to explain in the next chapter. **

**And yeah, Harry's crying in the end of this. I think part of it has to do with all the potions running through his system, plus the high-power adrenalin from the last twelve hours and finally holding his baby for the first time and you know, all that intense stuff.**

**Oh, and I also kind of edited the last chapter. Fixed some typos, added a tiny little scene between Harry getting hurt and Ron coming to get him. There were a few spots where I slipped into present tense, so I had to fix it. Sorry about that. I was reading a book that's written in present tense right before I wrote the last chapter, so it kind of rubbed off. Anyway…. **

**Okay, one last chapter to go. A few loose ends to tie up, but Al's here now. I hope you liked it! Please please please leave a review! I'm dying to know how everyone reacted to this chapter, ya know? **


	10. Beginning

**A/N: It is much delayed but I've finally finished! Yay! The much-awaited final installment has arrived! I sincerely apologize for keeping you waiting. You've all ben fantastic. Wonderfully encouraging. Thank you so much for that. This is just mainly a rap-up chapter, but I hope you enjoy it! **

Late-summer dawn light was very different from mid-winter, Harry thought. He was once more staring dazedly at the window, a foggy swirl of exhaustion, potions, and a strange icy pain in his side swirling in his brain. Soft light stained red by the curtains swayed around the room. Through a gap in the fabric he could see the breathtaking colors of sunrise just as they had appeared yesterday as he crouched on a hill – before his son had come into the world. Just as he had observed them all those months ago before his son was even thought of. He tried to remember what that morning in January had felt like, but at the moment Albus's existence was too powerful a thing to forget.

Ginny's even breathing filled his head instead. He thought she was asleep, but when he raised his head enough to see her face, her eyes met his.

"Morning," she mumbled in a raspy voice.

"Morning," he mumbled back, carefully winding an arm over her.

"It hurts," she told him, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

"Should I get someone?" he asked, alarm starting to rouse him properly.

She shook her head against his shoulder. "No. It just hurts. Said it would."

The alarm faded. He squeezed her shoulder gently and let his eyelids drift closed again. Sleep was already swirling around him once more, promising a blissful retreat when she spoke again.

"He okay?"

"S'pose so. We'd hear if it wasn't. We'd feel it."

Ginny pulled the blanket tighter around her, wriggled closer to him. "Yeah, we would."

"Ginny?" his thoughts were moving faster now, shaking off the stupor.

"Hm?"

"There's something I've been thinking about."

"I should have a witty comeback, but childbirth took it out of me," she said into his shoulder. "What is it?"

"He's got to have a middle name," Harry said slowly.

"I guess he does," Ginny agreed. "I thought Arthur might be nice. Or maybe Hirem."

"Hirem?"

Ginny yawned. "It was my great uncle's name. Dad liked him a lot."

"Er, yeah. Those would be good, it's just… I've got to ask you for something. I don't know if you can understand, but it's really important to me, okay?"

"Alright, hit me with it."

"I want his middle name… to be Severus."

Ginny's head shot up so fast, it collided with his jaw with an audible clack.

"How much painkiller did my mother give you?" she asked, struggling to sit up.

"Not enough," Harry groaned, rubbing his jaw. He pushed himself up, too, and the room heaved like the deck of a ship. On second thought, maybe he had more than enough potions swimming through his bloodstream. "You said to hit you with it."

"Not that hard!" Ginny protested. "Is there some long lost Severus Potter I don't know about? That must be it because I can't imagine why you would want to name your kid after the creepy git you spent most of your adolescence hating."

"Look who's back to coherence," he teased.

She gave him a _shut up_ look which only made him laugh and in turn made his side throb where the curse had sliced into him yesterday.

"I know it's, er, unexpected," he placated. "But you know I stopped hating him a long time ago. He saved all our lives."

"No, _you _saved all our lives," Ginny corrected. "Snape just helped convince you to sacrifice yourself."

"That's not – look, the point is he was on our side. And he loved my mother," Harry added, looking earnestly into Ginny's eyes.

"Which are great reasons to get over him being a bullying arse the whole time we were in school, but don't you think naming our son after the man is a bit overkill?"

"He has her eyes," Harry said quietly.

"Our son has _your _eyes," Ginny corrected, but Harry shook his head.

"They're her eyes. They'll always be her eyes. And I don't want to do this for me. I want to do it for her. He was my mother's best friend… once upon a time."

Ginny didn't seem to have anything to say to that. Harry's intense look never left her face.

"It's asking a lot," he conceded. "I know, but… please? It's important."

She sighed and looked down. "Albus Severus Potter. You really want to saddle a kid with that –"

But she broke off abruptly, her fingers going to trace the scarlet splotch seeping through the bandages wound around Harry's stomach.

He grimaced. "Better get those changed."

"You never did tell me why you were covered in blood," she reminded him, looking up accusingly.

"Oh, that," he tried to smile like it was a funny story, but it was more of a wince. "Well, see, we sort of walked into an ambush…"

By the time he finished the story, Ginny was gaping at him.

"So the whole time I was begging someone – anyone – to get you into this room, you were getting beat up by a pack of rogue werewolves?"

"Er, yeah. I suppose you could put it that way."

Ginny slumped back against the headboard with an exasperated sigh that turned into a muffled yelp of pain.

"Are you sure I shouldn't go get someone?" Harry asked anxiously.

"You're the one bleeding, you prat," Ginny muttered.

"We're not in very good shape, are we?"

"The boys are going to tear us to pieces," Ginny agreed, closing her eyes.

They sat listening to the quiet house long enough for sleep to again start pulling at Harry's consciousness, making the room fade in and out.

"That name," Harry mumbled. "It's the only thing I can do for my mother. A kind of way to make amends, even though it's too late. You know?"

Ginny sighed deeply. "If you promise not to come home covered in blood again, you can have your name."

He turned his head to kiss her forehead. "It's a deal."

"But when he hates us for giving him the most bullyable name there is, I'm not sharing the blame."

"Fair enough," Harry chuckled, already drifting off.

XxX

When Harry stumbled downstairs later that day, still groggy and desperate for whatever smelled so delicious, it was to find his kitchen far fuller than he'd expected. Mrs. Weasley had taken up her post at the stove, turning over fat sausages in a frying pan. Madam Denin was rummaging through a cupboard in the corner. Hermione sat on the floor with James, helping him finger paint a large piece of poster paper, Rose cooing from her carrycot beside them. And murmuring around the table were Mr. Weasley, Ron, George, and Percy.

He stopped short in the doorway, blinking at them all.

"Hey, mate," Ron said, spotting him first and standing up to clap him on the shoulder.

"Da!" James chirped from the floor, raising hands stained purple, blue, and red in Harry's direction, opening and closing his fingers like blossoming flowers.

"Harry, dear, I was just coming up to check on you," Mrs. Weasley said warmly, already sliding sausages onto a plate for him. "It must be ages since you've eaten…."

"How's Ginny?" Percy asked anxiously.

"And the baby?" George added.

"Er, alright, I think," Harry said distractedly. He looked toward Madam Denin for confirmation and she nodded reassuringly.

"They're both doing –" but the rest of her report was cut off by a sudden, shrieking whistle.

James and Rose both began wailing. Madam Denin bolted for the stairs, knocking Harry back into the wall. He made to follow her, but Mrs. Weasley caught his elbow.

"It's alright, dear," she said soothingly. "The baby's got apnea and –"

"Yeah, he stops breathing," Harry said wide-eyed. "She told me last night – that sound means he's not breathing?"

The piercing whistle faded as suddenly as it had started up. Mrs. Weasley's face relaxed into a smile. "See? He's alright."

She guided Harry into an empty chair, but he kept staring over his shoulder toward the top of the stairs and his son's nursery. And he wasn't the only one.

"He stops breathing?" George whispered, pale under his freckles.

"Just for a couple seconds," his mother soothed. "Until someone picks him up, reminds him. It'll stop when he gets a little bigger."

Slowly, they all settled back around the table. Suddenly Harry didn't feel much like eating. There were sounds from upstairs: Albus's thin, shuddering cries, doors, footsteps. Harry heard Ginny's voice. Mrs. Weasley set down the frying pan and hurried up the stairs.

"Madam Denin says everything is perfectly normal for the circumstances," Mr. Weasley murmured, but Ginny's brothers were not much soothed.

Harry knew that feeling of helplessness, had lived with it for months now. He had hoped it would go away now that Albus was here, but instead had come the realization that no matter what they did to help him, Albus would have to make it on his own.

A few minutes later, Mrs. Weasley reappeared, steering Ginny by the shoulders.

"Ginny!" George jumped up and enfolded his sister in a tight hug.

"Careful, George," his mother admonished.

"It's fine, Mum," Ginny assured her, flatly refusing to be delicate.

"How is he?" Harry asked worriedly as Ginny sat down beside him.

She took his hand under the table. "He's doing well."

There was a pause around the table as Ginny's brothers looked a strange mixture of awkward and anxious. But at last George clapped his hands together.

"Well, that's good news, then, in'it? Little bugger's got you two for parents. He's not giving up without a fight. What've you decided to call him, anyway?"

"Albus," Ginny said, smiling slightly.

George's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair, and Percy choked on a piece of toast.

"That's – well –" Ron stammered. He cast Harry a half-incredulous, half-amused look.

"I think it suits him," Mrs. Weasley said, giving her sons stern looks. "He's a tiny thing, but he looks wise already."

"Maybe so, but wasn't there anything a bit more this _century_?" George asked, ignoring the elbow Percy dug into his ribs. "Poor kid'll get the mickey taken out of him just from roll call."

"He could have a nickname," Hermione suggested, carrying James over to the sink to wash his hands.

"Little Bussy's cute," George said, trying to keep a straight face.

Ginny kicked his shin under the table.

"Or maybe he could go by his middle name," Hermione went on, frowning at George. "What is it anyway?"

Everyone looked towards the new parents curiously. Ginny sat back, sipping her tea. She gave her husband an it's-all-yourssort of look, trying not to smirk.

Harry cleared his throat. "Well – and keep in mind I have my reasons, okay – we decided on… Severus."

Harry could practically hear all six jaws hit the floor. Even now, thinking back to the conversation he and Ginny had had in the warm cocoon of their bedroom, his arguments seemed hazier than they had. But even with a clearer head, he didn't want to change his mind. It felt like something he had to do. And no other name seemed to fit his son now.

"I should report you for child abuse," Ron was saying, gaping at his sister and best friend across the table.

"I think we ought to take them into St. Mungo's," George said seriously. "You must have given them the wrong potions, Mum. Their brains have melted out of their ears."

Percy fidgeted. "Really. It seems – er – perhaps you should reconsider? I mean he _killed_ – it doesn't seem proper."

"I'm really not sure, Harry," Hermione said gently.

But Harry just shook his head resolutely. "I know it seems strange, but…"

Ginny sighed impatiently. "We named our son for Harry's mother's best friend and an honored hero. So you'd all better get used to it because it's not changing. And it certainly doesn't change who he is."

She stared down each of her brothers in turn, daring them to make any more comments. Harry squeezed her hand in gratitude as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley exchanged slightly shocked glances.

"Of course, dear," Mrs. Weasley said at last, smiling. "No matter what his name, I'm sure we'll all adore him. And if your brothers tease him, they can eat every Sunday dinner in the scullery," she added, eyeing her sons warningly.

XxX

"Are you sure that's a real baby?" Ron murmured.

Hermione pinched his arm hard. "He's precious."

"He's tiny," Ginny said, very carefully scooping Albus out of his basinet and turning so that Ron and Hermione could see him. Hermione waved her fingers, but they kept their distance. Madam Denin had warned them about Albus's weak immune system. It would be a while before the rest of the family would get a chance to see him.

"What was the rush, little man?" Ron asked the baby. "Couldn't wait to get out and meet your future favorite uncle?"

"He probably didn't want Rose going off to Hogwarts all by herself," Hermione smiled.

"Got in right under the deadline, didn't you?" Ron grinned. "She'll need looking after if she's anything like her mother."

"Her father, you mean," Hermione countered.

A loud cry rose from downstairs.

"I think she heard us," Ron said, glancing over his shoulder.

"I suppose that's our cue to leave," Hermione sighed.

She stepped forward to hug Harry, blew a kiss to Ginny and the baby, and pulled Ron out of the nursery, closing the door behind them.

Harry helped Ginny sit down in the rocking chair and knelt beside her, both watching Albus's every twitch.

"He's here," Ginny said softly. "It's all over and he's here."

Harry shook his head, resting his chin on the arm of the rocking chair and watching his son's bright green eyes drift. "No, it's just beginning."

**A/N: And there you have it. While Harry and Ginny may have officially named Albus while exhausted, suffering blood loss, and a little groggy from medication (I think one of the only ways they would actually go through with giving him that name), it wasn't some 'drug-induced mistake' either. Harry's reasons were mostly sound, and I don't actually think it was **_**that **_**far-fetched for him to do this. Harry and Snape will, in my opinion, always dislike each other (and that's probably a mild statement), but they both loved Lily. Well, those are my reasons. Make of them what you will. A part of me also believes that Albus did in fact insist on being born before September first so that he could go to school with Rose. It's funny how one grade level makes a big difference to kids, but it would have been different if Rose was a year ahead of Albus like she was supposed to be if Al had come on time.**

**Okay, I really am done talking now. Again, thank you all for your wonderful reviews and I hope to keep hearing from you! I've really enjoyed writing this story and I hope that you all have enjoyed reading it. **


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